Campaigners slam ‘convoluted’ broadband plan for rural areas

THE Government should have hired a firm to build a high-speed broadband network for rural Ireland, a campaign group said.

Ireland Offline has been campaigning for quality broadband in rural areas for over a decade and says it fears the latest controversy could delay this further.

Chairman Eamon Wallace said he is concerned the bidding process could end up in the courts following Denis Naughten’s meetings with bid leader David McCourt. ‘It could derail the whole process, it’s fifty-fifty, it could, but the possibility is endless. It’s a mess,’ he said.

Mr Wallace said he believed the current tender process, which will see the winner ultimately end up owning the fibre network, represents the wrong approach.

‘The whole process is so convoluted, it’s a joke. The bidders for this plan will get to own a piece of State infrastructure that we bought. Who knows what way this is going to go, but we have left our rural broadband customers with a dial-up internet and no real sign of a proper broadband roll-out.’

Eoin Clare, managing director of pricecomparison website Switcher.ie, said: ‘It would be a real shame to see this controversy cause further delays in what has already been a very long drawn-out process’.

Research carried out by his firm earlier this year showed a clear rural/urban divide in terms of people’s satisfaction with their broadband speeds.

A third of people in Connacht/Ulster (33%) said that they were unhappy with their broadband speeds at home, compared to just 16% in Dublin.