Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. It is important to point out that we cannot underestimate the decision that was taken by my party in government, Fine Gael, a number of years ago with regard to broadband. It was a very positive decision against much opposition at the time. It is clear through Covid-19, in particular, that it was the right decision to make. We are all delighted that was done and that the infrastructural work that needed to be done to ensure every house has broadband available to it started earlier.

As I said, Covid-19 showed how dependent we are and how elderly people who would never have been au faitwith IT used that service while they were isolated at home. I must admit that while some of the infrastructure is in place, it is still not as good as it should be. I live 50 m from the local exchange and my connection at home still drops at times despite the fact that I live so close to it.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the broadband officer in my local authority with whom I worked while I was a member of Longford County Council, Ms Christine Collins, and the IT team of Mr. Danny Lynch and Ms Maggie Donovan, in particular, for the work they did. They grasped this by appointing the broadband officer. I also think we were one of the first counties in the country to have an officer in place. We have rolled out the broadband connection points across the entire county. We have nine community centres, GAA clubs and local national schools. We have broadband points at all our libraries. All these were used during Covid-19. I thank all those organisations that worked with the local authority to put those provisions in place.

I printed out a list earlier with regard to people getting broadband in my own county. I spoke to one customer who six months ago was supposed to have broadband in quarter 4 of 2022. Now when this person puts in their Eircode postcode, they are informed they will have it between January 2023 and December 2024. That is a 24-month gap as to when this person will get broadband. To be quite honest, that is not good enough from a customer point of view. I ask that NBI gives definite details and times for when people will actually get that service.