Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following:

criticises the Government for its failure to adequately roll out next generation fibre optic broadband networks in Ireland which will be essential to attract additional foreign direct investment and to foster new enterprise start ups within Ireland.

On a positive note I acknowledge the achievement to introduce broadband into our schools. This was a good achievement and a very important and necessary educational tool and it has gone well.

The national broadband scheme is welcome but there are three issues which I wish to raise with regard to the scheme. First, it is regrettable that the Minister keeps putting back the date when there will be blanket cover - it is now back to the end of 2010. Second, large areas of rural Ireland are not being covered and Irish Rural Link tells us that 12,000 homes and businesses across the country cannot currently receive broadband and will not be fit to receive it. We are creating a rural-urban divide on the provision of broadband and a technological apartheid in the country. Third, it is based on mobile technologies and the jury is out on whether they can adequately ensure that rural Ireland will be ready for second generation broadband. Next generation broadband is absolutely essential to the economic recovery of this country. The amount of information being created and stored and transmitted digitally worldwide continues to expand at an exponential rate. Industries such as services and research are becoming more important than the traditional industries. They are also green industries and not reliant on fossil fuels, which is significant.

We need fibre-optic ducts and communications interchanges to ensure that we can develop second generation broadband. The Government performance to date in the provision of second generation broadband stands condemned by recently published OECD statistics. Ireland has the fifth slowest Internet speed in the OECD. We are only better than Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Mexico. Ireland is 21st out of 30 OECD countries in the numbers of broadband users per 100 people and remains below the OECD average.

Fine Gael's recent jobs plan, which was acknowledged by Government and all economic commentators as a very good plan and which has not been essentially challenged, proposes that the new economic recovery agency would establish a new State company, Broadband 21, to amalgamate and build on the diverse telecommunications assets of existing State companies, including Bord Gáis, CIE, the ESB and MANs, to create a new generation broadband network. The key to a high speed broadband network is fibre cable, even if wireless solutions have a role, particularly in isolated rural areas. My party proposes that €2.5 billion will need to be expended over three years in building high speed fibre infrastructure. Eircom's capacity to invest in next generation broadband is a disappointment. Eircom's request last year for €150 million State investment was rejected. Eircom has a huge debt problem of €3.7 billion. The privatisation of Eircom has turned out to be a nightmare.

I refer to a disturbing aspect of the metropolitan area networks scheme. Under phase one of the scheme there are 27 urban centres. The scheme is working in those 27 centres and the management company is E-Net. MANS phase II has 60 urban centres, of which 59 are non-operational. MANS phase I is operational and is run by E-Net and MANS Phase II is non-operational because the management company, E-Net, has not yet been sanctioned. This has been the case since last summer. I am aware that the sanctioning of E-Net as the management company is imminent but this tardiness suggests a lack of urgency and a lack of awareness at governmental level of the critical importance of second generation broadband to Ireland's economic recovery. That is a disappointment. The total cost of the MANS programme is €80 million. This money has been left inactive since last summer and it would be criminal if it were left inactive for a further period.

I acknowledge the progress made in the provision of broadband to schools and some of the progress made by MANS. I also acknowledge the national broadband scheme as having correct objectives, although it is very slow in implementation and had a very checkered introduction.

I commend the Fine Gael amendment to the House on the grounds that the Government has not made adequate provision for second generation broadband and has not grasped its significance as the engine which will drive economic recovery in the future and create new sources of employment. The amendment is reasonable in the circumstances and I urge the Minister of State to reassure the House by injecting a level of urgency and impetus into the roll-out of broadband to the areas which do not have it yet and second generation broadband to the entire country.