Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)
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Question 22: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his views on a recent report on broadband which placed Dublin 87th city in the world in relation to quality of broadband; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35499/09]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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I welcome the "Broadband Quality Score" report published jointly by the Universities of Oxford (England) and Oviedo (Spain). The report reflects the significant improvements in the roll out, uptake and quality of Ireland's broadband over the past year. The following points highlighted by the report are worthy of particular mention. The report highlights Ireland's improved broadband position and found that in 2009 Ireland moved into the group of countries that are recognised as "Meeting the needs of today's applications". During 2008 Ireland was in the group of countries that were classified as "Below today's applications threshold".

Ireland's overall ranking of 16th out of the 66 countries in the Broadband Leadership and shows due recognition for our increased penetration and quality over recent years. Ireland is also credited for its performance in terms of "Broadband Leadership Movers 2008–2009 Innovation Economies". Only 11 of the 66 countries are credited as leaders in this "innovation economies" class. Dublin is ranked at 87 (from a Broadband Quality Score perspective) of more than 240 cities surveyed and is included in the top 100 cities in the 66 countries surveyed. Inclusion in the top 100 cities of the global survey is praiseworthy. Our significant improvement in broadband availability over recent years is recognised in the table "penetration 2009" where we occupy 12th place in the table of 66 countries and were the 5th best country in terms of improvements between 2008 and 2009.

The need to improve the speed of uploading and downloading is recognised and government policy, along with regulatory practice, and the current spirit of competitive collaboration from industry is facilitating the industry to address these issues. The high level recommendations for policy makers contained in the report are already embedded in my recently published policy paper "Next Generation Broadband – Gateway to a Knowledge Ireland". It is also important to note that the report underpins recent OECD, ECTA and ComReg reports, which confirm improvements in Ireland's roll out and speed of broadband.