Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

Like other speakers, I compliment Senator Ross on bringing this Bill before the House. Indeed, he has regularly advocated in the House, be it on the Order of Business or in other ways, the development and use of broadband in this country. I support him in that effort. The Senator's Bill is quite detailed. Its most striking feature is the fact that it sets clear targets and clear levels of accountability for the delivery of adequate, next generation broadband for this country. In a way it is a pity that an Independent Senator must bring a Bill such as this before the House when there is a Minister who could do so with the full support of the Department and its civil servants.

The wheels are turning too slowly in the delivery of broadband or, in technical terms, the bytes are travelling too slowly and, in many cases, are not reaching their targets. This is a country that prides itself on having a good technology base, a well-educated workforce and on being an advanced economy. Shamefully, however, it lags far behind others with regard to broadband technology. That is evident in the level and quality of broadband in the cities, towns and villages throughout the country. If I can get broadband on my mobile phone, it does not mean I have the communications and technology infrastructure I require. I will say more about that shortly.

The understanding of broadband and the use of the term must be clarified as well. In many of the surveys carried out throughout the country by local authorities, regional authorities and others, the service providers are asked if they are providing broadband to which they reply "Yes". When individuals are asked if they can get broadband, they also reply "Yes". However, that broadband cannot be compared to what we call next generation broadband. That is the nub of the issue and it is what Senator Ross is dealing with in this Bill. His concern is quality and quantity with this technology, and I support him in that regard.

I listened with amusement to Senator Boyle when he said a survey of usage should be carried out. That is crazy. It is obvious that if we had adequate availability, we could conduct a proper survey of usage. Many people cannot use broadband because they cannot access it. That is the hard fact. In Northern Ireland there are penetration levels of high quality broadband of more than 90%; I am not sure if the level is 98% but it is definitely near that figure. In the Twenty-six Counties, it is far below the European average. That is shameful.

When discussing broadband we must examine key headings. I have already mentioned quality. The others are availability, penetration, speed and price. A huge mistake was made when the Eircom network was sold without any cognisance of or emphasis on access to those networks at a later stage by the State. A huge opportunity was lost. The Government had no access to the ducting, which is a simple pipe in the ground, when it made an attempt to install its own networks. It is a disgrace that this opportunity was lost and this must be highlighted.

In fairness, there was good investment in the metropolitan area networks or MANs that were rolled out by the regional authorities. Unfortunately, while millions were spent on installing MANs, there are huge problems with them. The main problem is the connectivity costs to those MANs. They preclude people from connecting to the broadband networks so the networks are not being used as they should. As a result, there is no return for the investment costs of installing the networks.

Penetration is another area that must be addressed. Penetration levels in Ireland are low. Senator Carty mentioned the mid-west but I am from the south east. Penetration levels in the south east are far lower than the European average. That is not good enough. Many rural areas depend on wireless broadband. It is better than nothing but if the terrain is mountainous or hilly, it does not work. If even trees are in the way, it will not work. It is not dependable in a modern society. We must have hard wired, hard connected, next generation broadband.

Speed is another important issue. I will not deal with it in further detail as I have already expressed my views on it. One point must be made, however. Speed is the area in which Ireland's performance is worst. The latest OECD figures, dated October 2007, place us 33rd out of 35 OECD countries in terms of average advertised download speeds, ahead only of Mexico and Turkey. This is a crazy statistic for a country that prides itself on education and technology. It is just not good enough.

Forfás found in December 2007 that the highest speed widely available to businesses at that time was 6 megabits per second and that our broadband cost four to five times more than considerably faster broadband in France, Germany and Hungary. How do we expect our businesses to compete if this is the level of service available in Ireland? We need to be more ambitious. In this Bill, Senator Ross, who is being ambitious, is producing a clear roadmap setting down levels of accountability and outlining how we can achieve our aspirations in this field. Time will pass and we will lose our place in the world economy if we are not competitive and do not have access to vital communications services.

Failure to be ambitious about broadband infrastructure in terms of next generation access will be disastrous for Ireland because we will be left further behind our economic competitors. Services that become commonplace in other countries will not be available here. A number of high-tech multinationals have already criticised Government policy in this area. Without high-speed broadband, businesses are less likely to expand and invest in Ireland.

I support this Bill and commend Senator Ross on introducing it. It is a signal to the Government that it should do its job and deliver vital broadband infrastructure. Broadband is as important as electricity and the transport networks. It is probably more important if we want to be competitive economically.