Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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520. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills in view of the success of the roll-out of high speed broadband to secondary schools, if consideration will be given to a similar initiative for other training centres operated by education and training boards, which have a lack of high speed broadband coverage that impacts on the delivery of training; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27707/15]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The Broadband Programme which installed high speed broadband in all second level schools was a joint venture between the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and my Department. The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources paid all the capital costs for the programme along with the current costs for the year of installation and one full year following installation. After this period, my Department will meet the current costs arising.

There is a project underway at present to provide all the Training Centres and the Head Office locations of the Education and Training Boards (ETBs) with gigabit connections to the Government Cloud Network. Currently the training centres all have 50mbps connections and all internet traffic passes through SOLAS head office, but the new gigabit connections will provide the centres with direct Internet access.

There are currently no plans for a national broadband programme for other ETB centres.