Shane Ross (Independent)

I welcome the Fine Gael amendment. The issue of broadband has only recently been discovered in this House and I see very little evidence of it being debated in the other House. It is possibly the most important technological issue facing Ireland today. I find it difficult to approach this motion and the attitudes of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party to it because I tabled two Bills in this House on broadband, one of which was rejected some months ago by the Minister of State's colleague, the Minister for Energy, Communications and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan. It was a very modest, limited and inexpensive project that proposed the speedy roll-out of broadband and the acceleration of the process. The Minister rejected it even though the offer was made to him that, as proposers of the Bill, we on the Independent benches would be prepared to amend it to his liking if he were prepared to accept the simple principle of the Bill, namely, to accelerate broadband in this country as quickly as possible.

For some reason, the Houses of the Oireachtas are paralysed regarding this issue. It never excites any great interest and as far as I know the first time it was mentioned in a motion in this House was about three years ago. The issue is building up, partly because of constituency pressure. As a House, as a body and as representatives, once again we are very slowly in catching up with the demands and needs of people in this area. People can say all they like and hear all they want from the Government benches and we can talk about all the emerging broadband network projects and everything the Government is doing, but I shall take the anecdotal evidence first. That is the real evidence. All of us, day after day, particularly but not exclusively in rural areas, meet people who ask why, in the name of God, they cannot get broadband in their house or area. This reaction does not come necessarily from small or any businesses but from individuals scattered all over Ireland. What is happening is simply not adequate. It does not meet the needs of the people.

In his contribution Senator O'Reilly produced a figure of €2.5 billion for the cost of ducting. I do not know whether it is right or how much this will really cost, although I suggest the total cost will probably be somewhat more. In terms of the sums we have been asked to find recently, it is a very small amount of money and in terms of the return we will get, it is an absolutely minute amount of money. The Minister of State will be aware, as will everybody else in the House, of the €4 billion the Government must find immediately for Anglo Irish Bank. Presumably that will come, in part, from the €1 billion it got on the markets yesterday and the few billion euro it got earlier. It will come out of borrowings, from the NTMA and from the Pension Fund, which will be raided again simply and solely to throw down a hole. That sum will almost certainly go up to €7.5 billion, will probably reach €11 billion and may go a great deal higher when there will be what is termed the recapitalisation of the other banks. That simply means throwing money down a black hole. We do not know what the cost of recapitalisation will be but we know that sum will be a great deal more than what we will have to pay for broadband, if we get it going. We know we will get very little return, if any, on that money.

If one talks about broadband overseas, or even in Europe, people cannot understand how Ireland can be, or was, such an advanced prosperous nation when it has such primitive broadband. One of the great miracles of the booming economy of the time is that we did it without having adequate broadband facilities. We attracted all those multinationals without having adequate broadband facilities because we had a particularly attractive tax rate. The companies could live with the broadband inadequacies and locate in particular areas where they had broadband access. They tended to centre in towns and cities which was entirely counter to Government policy but IDA Ireland had to live with that.

I wonder what IDA Ireland will say when it tries to sell Ireland in current or future circumstances. It will not be able to offer competitive broadband facilities. Companies will say the corporate tax rate is good and they will come here for that, but there is no doubt the Irish corporate tax rate is under threat. If we do not have broadband to offer and do not have the corporate tax rate of 12.5% we will not have much to offer. I do not know what IDA Ireland will be able to sell.

That 12.5% tax rate is under threat for two reasons. First, in his very well signalled recent speeches, President Obama made it clear that the United States requires an increase in its tax take and countries involved in transfer pricing will be examined. Transfer pricing is a taboo subject here. We all know it is a rather dubious activity whereby one party prices goods at an arbitrary and subjective level to suit itself and ensure that the tax collected and the trade, register and location of deals suit that nation rather than any other.

I believe strongly that the European powers are looking every day at that 12.5% tax rate. I hope this message goes out, particularly in view of the new referendum on the Lisbon treaty. If Ireland shows signs of weakness, which we must do and are doing, that will become a negotiating weapon with Europe. I do not wish to paint an appalling scenario but it is important to point out that at present we are very dependent on the European Union and the European Central Bank for the survival of liquidity and the banks in this State. If Europe wishes to take a hard line on this and if we get into even more trouble and become more dependent on Europe, that pressure point will increase. I have no doubt that our so-called friends in Germany and France will be able to put pressure on that part of our economy and on those measures we take which they find offensive and inconvenient. Then we may be faced with a situation in which we can no longer sustain the 12.5% tax rate. That is a bit of a red herring but I wished to say it. It will leave us in a very vulnerable situation. Concerning broadband, Senator O'Reilly and other speakers told us where we stand in the league. If we are near the bottom of the European league at that stage we will have very little to offer.

It is timely to debate this. We should accelerate broadband roll-out and should spend money on it even if it has to be borrowed. Borrowed money, well spent, is worthwhile. Borrowed money, disposed of and thrown after the banks down a black hole, is a completely different matter.