Mayo still offline when it comes to broadband - Murray
Published: 6 September, 2006
Sinn Féin's General Election Candidate in Mayo Councillor Gerry Murray has blamed Ireland's poor take-up of broadband on the flawed broadband policies of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments.
Cllr. Murray said, "Ireland now ranks second lowest when it comes to broadband take-up in the European Union. Our telecommunications farce can be traced back to Fine Gael's decision to appoint a telecommunications regulator and then Fianna Fáil's decision to privatise Telecom Éireann (now Eircom) in 1999.
"Fine Gael's and Fianna Fáil's deregulation policy meant that profit took precedence over the construction and modernisation of our telecommunications infrastructure. In every attempt to get Eircom to invest in broadband and infrastructure, the government were humiliatingly told where to go by Eircom.
"The result sees Mayo and Ireland offline when it comes to broadband with around just 8 per cent of the Irish population with broadband, compared to an average of 15.9 per cent for the 15 original countries, requiring Ireland to double its broadband uptake just to meet the EU average.
"The venture capitalists profited from the Eircom privatisation fiasco while our telecommunications infrastructure suffered. The government have stated that they are attempting to address the problem of poor broadband availability by building high-speed broadband networks in towns and cities, but once again it will be the tax-payers who will have to foot the bill while the Eircom millionaires sit back and let the cash roll in."
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