Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I welcome the Bill and will not delay its passage through the House because it is a very important Bill. Is this a retrospective provision? The ducting is there but there was no legislative authority to provide it through private property, which is the norm. I understand that the gas network would have had legislative authority to lay its pipes. This was an additional idea to provide the ducting which I would fully concur with. The Bill does not seem to involve the purchase of private lands but the establishment of a right of way over private lands to maintain the ducting. I understand that €90,000 has already been paid in compensation to 500 farmers along that route. The Department is providing for €200,000 in further compensation. What exactly is the compensation for? If the pipes have been laid and backfilled was there much damage to the properties involved? I presume compensation was paid by GNI for the laying of the pipework.

In July 2017 Fianna Fáil introduced the Planning and Development (Rapid Broadband) Bill 2017, which provided a consistent and streamlined framework for the development and sharing of broadband infrastructure in Ireland. If enacted this Bill would make it much easier for operators to find and share existing broadband infrastructure, making it more convenient and efficient to provide services to areas not serviced at the moment by requiring new roads and buildings to have fibre optic ready ducting in place. The Bill would also help to bring Ireland's planning laws into the digital age and speed up the roll-out of broadband. I suggest that the Minister of State examine that.

There is quite a lot of ducting laid and I can never figure out exactly who owns what, where and when. Some years ago ducting was laid in a ring around Roscommon and connected up, whether to the Iarnród Éireann lines adjoining them or through the ESB I do not know. There is much confusion about this. The broadband connection to the Oireachtas provided to Members from a designated office in our areas comes through the Eir copper wire instead of fibre optic cable. I understand there is a fibre optic cable around Roscommon which would be more efficient.

I regard this as retrospective legislation which is not a very good idea. Somebody somewhere did not feel it necessary to have separate legislation for the ducting but when the matter was examined the question of compensation arose which could not be paid out unless there was legislation to allow the Exchequer to do so. I hope this does not create a precedent that would allow the Minister and Department to issue approval to private wind operators giving them rights over properties to bring electric power to the nearest major electricity infrastructure. That is one factor we have resisted in respect of the provision of wind turbines in our beautiful, scenic, tourism area. The developers would not have the necessary legislative approval to bring overhead wires over private property. That power rests with the ESB. I hope this is not a back door approach to allowing these rights develop for multinational companies to put pylons on private property with no political oversight. I welcome the Bill. Fianna Fáil supports it and wants to see it passed as quickly as possible.