Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources 2002- 2007

This is the first time an Oireachtas Committee has looked in detail at this developing area and given the importance of broadband to the social and economic development of Ireland it is likely to be an area that will be monitored closely in future.

As the Irish economy develops to being a knowledge economy the ability to access, transfer, interpret and apply information and knowledge will be key and in such an economy broadband is the critical enabling technology. Indeed I am reminded how appropriate is the Andrew Carnegie quote— "The best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise..."

If Ireland is to meet the challenges of being a knowledge economy, it is essential that universal broadband is available at affordable prices for both businesses and citizens. I believe that the provision of broadband will be crucial to the development of the Irish economy. Indeed, I fully agree with the General Secretary of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources when he advised the ICT sub-Committee that "Broadband will be as important to the new economy as grass to agriculture."

The most obvious characteristic of the broadband market is the speed of change within the market. In the short period since the ICT sub-Committee began its work the state of the broadband market in Ireland has changed considerably. In the future, in the space of a couple of years the technology is likely to have changed again and this will present a unique challenge for governments who are not usually faced with having to make major infrastructural decisions in so uncertain an environment.

Despite the rate of change in the market, the last few weeks of 2003 have seen the Government's continued commitment to broadband with the announcement of significant further funding to support the rollout of a broadband network to a large number of rural towns via both a series of new Community Broadband Exchanges and a new Group Broadband Scheme.

In the market there have been a number of encouraging signs that progress is now being made. In recent weeks the main telecommunications incumbent, Eircom, announced that a further large number of regional towns will shortly be DSL enabled and also that there will be new lower wholesale rates for DSL. This has been matched by announcements from ESB Telecoms and Esat BT in relation to reduced backhaul access prices and further, Esat BT has introduced competitively priced bundled voice and Internet services.

Having said this it is quite apparent to the members of the Joint Committee that the issue of a competitive national broadband network is of critical importance to the continuing success of Ireland's economic and social development. This is an area in which continuing Government support and involvement will be required on a on-going basis.

While many of the submissions that the ICT sub-Committee received were technical in nature the one unifying message which emerged was that the availability of broadband is now a key component of national competitiveness and as such is one which is worthy of considerable Government attention. From both a business and a consumer viewpoint the necessity and potential benefits of access to competitively priced broadband have been made abundantly clear to the ICT sub-Committee. Moreover the point has been made that, in reality, decentralisation and balanced economic and population development cannot take place where there is regional or urban-rural broadband divide.

Beyond this though the importance of a national high-speed broadband network is manifest in the potential of this technology to have a transformative effect on areas such as public services and the provision of healthcare. The potential here cannot be stressed too strongly. In every sense Government has a lot to gain, as with any other business, not least from the cost and efficiency savings that can be realised through the use of broadband. Beyond this though, the real gains Government will derive flow from the ability that a universal broadband infrastructure provides to Government to offer new services and to change the way in which exiting services are provided. From the submissions that the ICT sub-Committee received it would appear that it is in the healthcare and education sectors that many of the most immediate gains could be realised.

With so much mention of efficiency gains and business benefits from the use of broadband it is vital to be conscious of the community aspect of broadband. At its core broadband is really about communication and in particular improving and facilitating new forms of communication. This has important implications for society as broadband holds the potential, but not as yet the promise, of becoming an enabling technology that will improve the lot of those disadvantaged whether by age, social class, ability or geography. By the same logic, failure to make the technology widely available has the potential to become the basis of further division within society, the double-edged sword of not alone reinforcing existing inequalities but creating new inequalities.

The Government has set out its Information Society Action Plan in the report "New Connections". However, if Government is serious about realising the targets included in that plan then action is crucially required this year. In 2004 the members of the Joint Committee feel that the key issue will be how the matter of the last mile/first mile access is addressed and resolved. Ireland must ratchet up significantly the numbers using broadband in order to begin to compete again on the world stage. For the Joint Committee, 2004 represents an ideal opportunity to begin to address the broadband divide. However, there is risk in that if critical decisions are not taken then Ireland will slip further behind our competitors.

In closing, as Chairman of the ICT sub-Committee which considered the issue in such great detail, I would like to extend my appreciations to the other members of the ICT sub-Committee Deputies Thomas Broughan, Martin Brady, Simon Coveney (who was Rapporteur to the Committee), Denis O'Donovan, Eamon Ryan and Senator Brendan Kenneally for their commitment and dedication during the course of the hearings and in the preparation of the Report. I would like to thank Mr. Brian Smith of Boston College who on his internship acted as the sub-Committee researcher. I would also like to thank I would like on behalf of the Joint Committee to pay a special thanks to staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas, the staff in the Office of the Editor of Debates, the staff in the Broadcasting Unit, the sound engineers, the Superintendent, Captain of the Guard and the Ushers, the Director of Committees, Mr. Art O'Leary, the Deputy Director Mr. Padraic Donlon, the Clerk to the Committee, Mr. Ronan Lenihan and all the staff of the Committee Secretariat in particular Ms. Rita Sexton, Mr. David Alwright, Ms. Siobhan Murtagh and Ms. Jenny Duane for all their hard work and assistance to the Members in bringing this report to finality.