Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and colleagues for their contributions. When the decision was made on this project, support for it was not unanimous support and concerns were articulated by certain people. It is welcome and lovely to hear everyone now saying we should get on with it because everyone wants broadband all around the country. Covid has shown us how important high-speed connection is for all the new advantages and improvements in life we have. It is needed for the delivery of services. I acknowledge that and wish continued success to the programme.

Having said that, I will speak about a flaw in the programme and ask the Minister of State for help. My office is in Skerries which is in County Dublin. The vast majority of the county was part of the commercial part of the roll-out of the plan. When the plan was initiated, it included a guarantee that anyone who was not provided high-speed broadband by the commercial operators would be taken up by NBI. It might have taken a while but there was a guarantee that everyone would get the high-speed broadband we all so desperately require and soon.

I am in the unfortunate position of saying to the Minister of State that a number of people on my road in Skerries do not have broadband. The commercial operators are not going to do it. That is fine but we have engaged with NBI and it will not provide them with broadband either. We have gone back and forth and said it must be wrong. We are not wrong. There are gaps in both aspects of the delivery where neither the NBI nor the commercial operators will fulfil the contract on behalf of the State to provide it.

I have done a wider trawl than just Church Street and Strand Street in Skerries and I found that a significant number of houses, not at the end of country lanes or the forks in roads but in our urban areas, where the broadband connection is not good enough to be able to make the connection, either by commercial operators or NBI. These will not be part of the overall contract that is necessary for us to be able to live in the meta world very soon.

Will the Minister of State ensure a national review and audit of all of those houses are done? Will he meet NBI to find out what the State needs to do to ensure that people who live in Dublin, less than 15 km from the epicentre of the country, cannot get access to high-speed broadband? What will the State do to provide that?

Otherwise, this is a successful roll-out of a national infrastructure which I hope will bring benefits to every single household, town, community, school, GAA club and all the online businesses which have sprung up in the last couple of years because premises have been closed. We have got used to shopping online, visiting our doctor online and availing of all these wonderful new advantages we have. We have the confidence to do so. However, some people are being left behind. They do not have a date in 2023 or 2024 but no date. We need to do a national review and come up with a response to how we will give those people the infrastructure they need.