Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. He has one of the most interesting and varied portfolios and deals with many of the critical issues of our time. I wish him well and I have no doubt he is up for the job. I am aware that consideration was given to adding another aspect to his portfolio. I know that whatever is put before him he will deal with it well.

I mentioned the national broadband plan yesterday. I compliment the Minister who has hit the ground running. I am pleased that he brought a paper to Cabinet and that we will see some progress on that plan which is critical for rural Ireland. I am aware that 85% of the country will need assistance to get high speed broadband. Given that the Minister mentioned the cost to the State if it was to provide it without engaging with the private sector, how can he ensure that once a grant is given to a private company, it will deliver the broadband to the rural areas which are not commercially viable? Is there a service level agreement to begin with or how will it be described in the terms of reference of the tender process?

I support Senator Tim Lombard in respect of his comments on the mobile telephone service. It is a terrible. Perhaps the Minister would enlighten the House on the issue of individuals being compensated for dropped calls. I do not know how widespread the problem is. There is also another issue where one is driving along for a minute or two and one cannot hear somebody and one's natural inclination is to extinguish that call and try to make another one with the result that people are paying again and again for telephone calls. As was explained to me by a person involved in the area of foreign direct investment at a time when we are trying to encourage people to locate in the country outside the large urban centres, when an American or somebody else drives down the road and picks up their mobile telephone and cannot get through he or she will ask if this is a modern country of the European Union in which to invest. We are really up against it not just to get foreign direct investment but for ourselves. Perhaps the Minister would take up the issue with the telecommunications company concerned because it is being given licences and it owes to people to give them a service other than the type of service that most of us in rural Ireland experience, which is totally below standard.

I turn to the issue of climate change and the environment. This is one of the most critical conversations of our time and how we proceed will leave a mark for generations to come. The Paris agreement of December 2015 brought back into sharp focus the issue of targets and trying to bring on board as many nations as possible. Ireland alone or no country on its own will bring about the required change and reduction in carbon emissions that are causing global warming. There are particular challenges for developing countries. They look at the West, at developed countries and see that we have prospered on the back of fossil fuels. They ask why they cannot have that action and why they have to take on board, for example, renewable energy technologies, which are more expensive. We need to have a real conversation on what is the common good. Too often, the pendulum has gone in the other direction. It is all about the individual and not the common good. I would argue that what has made this country and many nations great is a conversation about the common good and what steps we need to take, being responsible citizens, towards reducing carbon emissions and embracing renewable technologies and renewable energy. That requires us to think outside the box.

Mr. Alvin Toffler an American writer and futurist who died in June said the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. We live linear lifestyles where we consume, and up until the last few decades we have had very little regard for the end result, how we discard our waste and what we take from the ground. As Mr. Alvin Toffler said, nobody is pumping oil or gas back into the ground. We know there are supplies that probably will see our generation and the next generation through but there is a big price to be paid for it.