Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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471. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if the Minster of State, Deputy Pat Breen, has met with broadband providers and/or telecoms providers in the past three years, to date; if she will provide a schedule of the meetings he has had, including company names, location of meetings and persons present; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45000/18]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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As advised in previous responses to the Deputy, I attended the following meetings with David McCourt of Granahan McCourt. These included one speaking engagement at an event that I attended in June 2016 on request from the Department of Foreign Affairs, and two meetings recorded in the Departmental diary for October and December 2016.

In my capacity as a local representative for County Clare, I met with Paul Bradley (Director of Corporate Affairs) and Gary Healy (Director of Public Policy) of EIR to discuss broadband issues in Clare. This meeting took place on 21 November 2017.

I also met with a local representative of SIRO Network on 14 May 2018 to discuss their delivery of broadband services in Shannon town.

I was also guest of honour at an Ennis Townhall launch by ESB/Vodafone/SIRO on 7 April 2017 of their Gigabit Broadband Network.

In March 2018, I received a delegation from IBEC to discuss data protection, in the context of the forthcoming GDPR, and digital technology. This delegation included a representative of Eir.

There was no discussion of the National Broadband Plan at any of these meetings.