Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Education and Skills in view of the fact that schools depend so much nowadays on the internet as a school resource that a greater bandwidth be made available for a school (details supplied) in east Cork. [6448/13]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Under the Schools Broadband Access Programme the Department provides for the supply of internet connectivity for all recognised primary schools. All contracts under the Schools Broadband Access Programme were recently re-tendered under a public procurement competition. As a result of this the number of service providers has been expanded from 6 to 13 with the aim of ensuring that where available that a preferred solutions would be awarded to a school. These contracts were signed in the summer and the migration of schools onto the new services is currently underway.

The Department is aware of the difficulty that some schools, such as Kilcredan National School have with their broadband service. Through the public procurement process the Department has sought as far as possible to reduce the reliance on satellite services and the number of schools reliant on a satellite connection has fallen from approximately 1,800 in 2005 to approximately 250 at present. Satellite connections and some other slower connections have only been awarded where no other solution was proposed and contracts for these connections have only been awarded for one year. These schools will be re-tendered next summer and in the interim the Department will liaise with service providers to try and ensure that where possible improved connections will be made available.