The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Gaeltacht call for better coverage
TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN SOUTH KERRY NEED TO IMPROVE IF THREE-YEAR REGENERATION PLAN IS TO FLOURISH
PHONE coverage in South Kerry’s Uíbh Ráthach Gaeltacht is set to come under the microscope as the campaign to fight back against years of rural decline steps up in the locality.
The Gaeltacht region has aimed to attract at least 10 new families to live in the area over the coming years as part of the local Tascfórsa’s action plan, but supporting job creation will, of course, be a central part of that plan.
A strong communications system will be vital on that front, but locals say that is something which is lacking in parts of the Gaeltacht.
“The coverage is not continuous,” Caitlín Breathnach of Tascfórsa Uíbh Ráthaigh told The Kerryman.
“I’m living in Dromid, and sometimes the phone in the house rings fine – other times, it doesn’t.
“We’re coming at this with business hats on. We’re trying to bring families to Uibh Ráthach and to work here, but we need to have phone coverage that backs that up.
“So we need help from the public to put together an accurate picture of coverage black spots, and we can then go to providers and help them make the necessary improvements.
“It [the study] will be starting right away. We’d like would-be participants to contact us, download the app, use it as we’ve instructed, and then pass on the information to us, accompanied by their eircode.
“Anyone from the region who’d like to participate, we’d be happy to hear from them.”
The irony is not lost on the locality that South Kerry was once at the heart of global communications, with the transatlantic cable laid from Valentia cable station to Newfoundland, Canada, a century ago. In the here and now, poor coverage may be one contributor to the startling decline highlighted in research by Mary Immaculate College Limerick’s Dr Breandán O’Keeffe in recent years, findings which included a 40-per-cent drop in the region’s population since 1956, even though the nationwide Gaeltacht population had grown by 20 per cent in that time.
The task-force aims, amongst other things, to create 145 new full-time jobs; encourage a three-per-cent increase in population; bring about a 10-per-cent increase in tourism; and a five-per-cent increase in people speaking Irish daily by the end of 2022.
“A stable telecommunications and phone service is a fundamental requirement in any area from a social, business and employment perspective,” says Tascfórsa chairperson Dónal Ó Liatháin. “The Taskforce aims to welcome ten new families to Uíbh Ráthach over a three-year period and, as part of its three-year Action Plan, member organisations are looking to support job creation in the locality.
“A robust and reliable communications infrastructure is a basic corner stone in facilitating such employment creation, and is of fundamental importance also from a community safety perspective.”
Participants in this telecommunications study are asked to contact the tascfórsa at either (087) 647 4675 or s.grant@udaras.ie; register contact details and eircode; and then download a free app, which will record signal strength at several times daily. The study is expected to take a few weeks to compile.