Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Broadband has been promised to every house in the State for over ten years now. It remains no more than a promise. The Government last year signed a contract with National Broadband Ireland to the value of approximately €3 billion. Since then, we have heard precious little from National Broadband Ireland on when it intends to begin the installation of broadband. At the time, the estimate was five to seven years but we have no indication as to when it will begin and end.

We are now in level 5 and have asked the Irish people to take extreme measures and stay at home. We still expect them to provide appropriate services while working from home. We expect our college students to participate in lectures and advance towards examinations. We expect people to do their banking without going to the bank. We effectively expect people to live their lives from home, to the greatest extent possible. Yet, 540,000-odd people have no access to high-speed broadband. I appeal to the Cathaoirleach and to the Leader to try to organise a debate here as quickly as possible with the Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, to see if anything can be done to roll out a wireless service to some of those areas as a kind of stopgap measure.

Like many others in this and the other House, I take calls from people about this matter on a daily basis. Those people could manage until now but, with the level of restrictions that we are now placing on them, they can do so no longer. Unless we are prepared to address that in some way, we will make it much more difficult for people to remain in their homes.