John Carty (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House. The Minister and the Government want to ensure their communications policy drives the Irish economy and breaks the digital divide. The key strategy in that strategy is to ensure there is widespread availability of affordable, always-on broadband for businesses and citizens. I am happy to note that the Minister recognises there is a lack of service in regional areas outside the main urban centres and that he has undertaken initiatives to address that problem by providing grant aid. There is also recognition that more remote areas find it difficult to access broadband. There are now people living in those areas who work from their homes three days per week and do not get a fast service, if any service at all. That is frustrating for people trying to do business.

As someone from County Mayo I am aware that in the west of the county there is a demand for broadband but the people are not getting the service they require. In south Mayo I am getting the same complaints from constituents. While they live near Eircom bases they do not appear to be able to get the service they require.

The national broadband scheme will bring broadband to areas of the country which currently are without coverage. It is being provided by 3 Ireland independently of Eircom's plans. This may be no harm, because Eircom has not done the job it promised to do. This body is contracted to meet challenging roll-out targets and provide higher speed broadband as the scheme is implemented. Implementation will be on the basis of electoral divisions. The Minister has provided a major contribution from the Exchequer, which is welcome. I hope the scheme will provide access to broadband in remote areas which are finding it difficult to get the required levels of service. Urban centres seem to be fairly well looked after but rural areas are not. This has a major impact on people living in those areas. In fact, they are quite annoyed about it.

There has been much negativity about Ireland's progress in the area of broadband but there is positive news too. We should note that it is not all bad news. As late as June 2007 there were 500,000 subscribers; now there are more than 1 million. There are 40 operators in the market at present compared with three in 2000. This gives an idea of where we are going and of the demand for the service. The latest global innovation survey, which was published recently, placed Ireland third out of 40 advanced economies in the area of broadband improvement. There was a 6,088% increase in the number of subscribers from 2005 to 2008. This is welcome news. I hope this progress will continue and that we get the service we deserve and that is being demanded.

My colleague mentioned the appearance of Eircom representatives at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in early March. They said they were reviewing the level of investment in next generation broadband networks owing to the economic downturn. I may be wrong in saying this but I do not think it provided a great service when the economy was going well. It did not do enough to ensure remote regions were provided with broadband access, whether by fibre-optic cable or by satellite. It did not do a good job and I am delighted independent bodies are now coming in to pick up the slack.

The representatives at the committee said that Eircom planned to upgrade its core network from copper wire to fibre-optic cable in urban centres and regional towns throughout the country by 2011. That is not good enough. It has had plenty of time and opportunity over recent years to improve the service but has not done so. This will leave rural people without a hope of being provided with broadband. Eircom is the largest and best resourced body to provide these rural areas with vital services but it has not done so. It merits criticism in this regard. It has not given the service that was expected through the years. Despite the times we are in, Eircom also said there were technical difficulties providing broadband to people in rural Ireland who live more than 5 km from a telephone exchange. I must challenge even that because I know people who live within 1 km of a telephone exchange and do not get a satisfactory broadband service. This is to be deplored.

I am delighted the Government is pushing ahead with the national broadband scheme and I hope it will rectify many of the shortfalls that currently exist in rural broadband provision. I compliment the Minister on his actions. I know he is trying to advance this process. It is vital, especially at present in view of the economic downturn. There are opportunities. I know quite a number of people who have set up businesses in their own homes aimed at foreign markets, and if they had a good broadband service they could bring much more money into our economy from abroad. I ask the Minister to take our comments on board and to consider the more remote regions, especially along the west coast, where there are different problems to those existing in large urban centres.