This is a really important occasion for us as a government, particularly important for me as Minister for Communications, but as Minister for Communications who comes from a rural area. I am from the middle of nowhere. I’m not surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, but I am from the middle of nowhere. And I’m from a small community in West Limerick. And I have to say that the advent of rural broadband has been really transformative for the people that I represent.
There was a time when I was in the Dáil early on, that every second person that you’d meet, the only thing that they would ask you about was, when are we going to get broadband? When are we going to get the same as what they have in Dublin? And for me, to be quite honest about it, as somebody who represents a rural area and who comes from a rural area, has three small children, was a teacher myself previously, was also an engineer. This is our generation’s version of rural electrification.
And in the 1920s, when the first Irish Free State government decided to go off and build a dam on the river Shannon to produce electricity for the total needs of the country at the time, there were many in the intelligentsia of Ireland who criticised it as a mad-cap idea by this young Irish government. And what in the name of God are they doing expending so much of our national income on a harebrained idea to dam the Shannon and produce electricity? And of course, out of it came ESB, and out of that ultimately came rural electrification.
And rural electrification was transformative for people in rural areas because it gave them something that they never thought that they’d have. It gave them hope. Because there was a time that this part of the country and my own part of the country as well, the only thing that parents had was the knowledge that their children were, in the words of Eamon de Valera, been brought up like cattle for export. And this part of the country was particularly ravaged by the absolute scourge of immigration. And as somebody who grew up in the 1980s and who, you know, while other people might have been pucking the ball off of the gable into the house, I might have been better off if I was doing that. I was listening to people like Gareth Fitzgerald and Charlie Haughey explaining how we were going to stop this scourge of immigration and how rural communities would have a future. And we thought that this was pie in the sky, to be quite honest about it. We’d never thought it was going to happen, that we were going to have the same as what they were going to have in urban communities.
And of course, then along came the decision, again, which was much maligned by the intelligentsia of Ireland, not much changed, some in the media, some in government, some civil servants, some very high profile politicians, that to bring broadband to places like Achill and Keem and Achill Sound and Minaun was a total and utter waste of the public’s money. And of course, not only had those words been spilled out of their mouth but then came COVID and the rest is history. Because the rest is history, because all of a sudden, we found that you could work for a company in Tennessee or Sydney and be based here in Achill, or Castlebar or Behola or Mount Collins or Brusna or wherever, and it didn’t matter. You didn’t have to move to Dublin. You didn’t have to pay exorbitant rents. You didn’t have to leave your family behind. You could train the local GAA club. You could actually play with the local GAA club. You could send your children to the local primary school. They could be brought up through the medium of Irish if you wanted to in the Gaeltacht in Oileán Acla.
And we could do all of that because of the investment that the government made. And I know it was criticised at the time, and it was criticised as a kind of a vanity project, and they said, “Oh, this will never be achieved?” And if it is achieved, it’ll run massively over budget, and it’ll be a fraction of what the government are saying. It isn’t. It’s on time. It’s on budget. It’s going to be completed ahead of schedule and has been transformative. And the reason that I know it has been transformative, as a constituency TD, in the most rural constituency in the country, because the largest town in my constituency only has 7,000 people. I don’t have any place like Castlebar or Westport in terms of population. The issue of broadband has disappeared in terms of people making it a hot issue. There are still issues in terms of, you come to the end of the road, and people want to make sure that they’re connected next, and they will be, and everybody will be connected. Because at the moment, the passing rate, in other words, the rate of the number of properties that are being passed by National Broadband Ireland is enormous, and great credit has to go to them for all of the work that they’re doing, their leadership, their contractors, the men and women on the road that are actually making sure that the cables are being pulled.
And it hasn’t been without its challenges. We had a hurricane during the winter, which caused no amount of damage, but it still has been recovered. And here in Achill, you know, 2,500 premises are now passed. That means that the cable has been drawn passed them. 159 have been activated, and 217 have additional orders. And we know that there are some people that have preexisting orders with other companies. And once those contracts wear out, they’ll have the option now to switch to, you know, a state-of-the-art connectivity and communication system that their parents’ generation never thought was going to happen. In fact, their parents’ generation thought the best form of communication system that came to County Mayo was Knock Airport, because it made immigration easier. And how sad was that? They didn’t have to go to Shannon, or they didn’t have to go to Dublin anymore, that they had their own airport to immigrate from. Now they have their own airport to come home to, and they have their, you know, a communication system that is the best in the world, that makes sure that offshore islands like Achill can be connected anywhere in the world, and that you can literally work anywhere in the world.
And you can also make sure that you can have a thriving local business. And as John said there a while ago, on the piece, and I have had the opportunity of staying in the Burvie, any of you who haven’t, you’re really missing out. It’s the finest fry I’ve ever ate, to be quite honest about it. And I can attest to that. And I don’t know if they’re taking bookings or not, but if they are, I’d be definitely back. But it does make sure that like a booking system, a cards payment, you know, a music system, the very basic things like Instagram, and everybody wants to have that moment now of the most beautiful beach in the entire civilised world at Keem, that they can now be shown anywhere instantaneously. And we’re doing that by virtue of the fact that we have brought a communication system to this part of West Mayo, that people a couple of years ago remember, not that long ago, said was a terrible waste of money. I don’t think it’s a terrible waste of money. I think it’s no more than the people in rural areas deserve.
And in County Mayo, the government have invested 145 million euros to bring fibre to 37,000 premises. Like they are enormous figures. Now you won’t hear people on Midwest radio, now I was on Highland Radio there this morning, but you won’t hear people in Midwest Radio roaring and bawling about how much money the government is spending in broadband and saying, “Isn’t it terrible?” It isn’t, because most people that are availing of it, their children are able to get educated online, they’re able to get resources online, they’re able to book flights, they’re able to do their banking, they’re able to make sure that their elderly relatives can FaceTime, they’re able to do everything the people in urban areas take for granted. And they’re doing so on the back of an investment that the government always said was value for money. And it is value for money. And the people in the West of Ireland, the people in my constituency, they pay their taxes too. And they deserve the type of infrastructure that people in Dublin have had for many, many years. So, it was right that the government made the intervention that we made, and I was part of that government at the time, and I was a Minister of State in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. And we got an awful lot of criticism from the intelligentsia of Ireland, all Dublin based, saying, “This was a terrible waste of money.” Well, it’s not. It is only what the people of rural Ireland have deserved. And I’m sure the predecessors of those people who claim that this is a waste of money were also saying that rural electrification to places like the Black Valley and Achill was also a waste of money. And it wasn’t because it’s only what people deserve.
So, in Mayo, 15,200 houses and businesses and farms have now been passed, and they can order, or they can pre-order their high-speed broadband through the retailers. And some of the big developments include, like these figures are massive, 2,000 premises around the town of Castlebar, 2,100 near Ballina, and 1,700 around Newport. And these are small towns, but if you say that there’s an occupancy rate maybe of two or three people in every house in Castlebar, that’s nearly 5,000 people. That’s the population of the town that I’m from. And today, 4,000 properties, farms, businesses, other properties, pubs and everything else have gone live.
And at a national level, the numbers are even bigger, like this, half a million premises in the Intervention Area. 145,000 kilometres of fibre have been deployed. I don’t know how many times that goes around the world, but it’s a lot. And one and a half million poles have been installed. That’s not people now, that’s poles. And 15,000 kilometres of underground ducting. Like these numbers are off the scale. And by the way, there are still people in Dublin, I’d say, who are probably crying into their porridge this morning and thinking that this was a waste of money. Their articles are freely available if you Googled them and they’re known to have a go at me every now and again as well.
386,397 different properties have been passed by NBI by the end of June. And look, the average take-up rate is rising rapidly. And as people come out of one contract, they’re going to move on to NBI supported contracts because, to quite honest about it, it’s a lot faster.
So, the rollout, which is being supported by the state, none of this will be possible only for the state, because a lot of the companies now, by the way, there’s no charities in this, you know, none of these companies are losing money. And an awful lot of the ones there that you see, you know, killing you with advertising at the moment, our broadband is faster than this broadband, is faster than that broadband. None of them were going to bring broadband to the West of Ireland, were it not for the government. And let’s call a spade, a spade. And it costs in excess of two and a half billion euros. So, every time now, the people in Mayo, see an ad online, or on television for a high-speed broadband in your area; remember, these are the people who wouldn’t bring it before, now they’re bringing it, thanks to the investment that we’ve made. And look, we recognise the fact that these companies in their own rights are going to make money out of it. That’s what keeps the world turning, and that’s what we support. And their businesses in their own right, creating employment, bringing investment into the West of Ireland, and we’re hugely supportive about that.
So, look, this has been a very exciting journey for the government. It’s been a very exciting journey for us in terms of, first of all, convincing people that this was the right thing to do. I think when you see and hear the testimonies of people that I represent in rural West Limerick, in the Galtee Mountains, which was one of the last areas, in many cases, that were rurally electrified, those people will now all attest to the fact, that national broadband and the roll-out of fibre has been transformative for the quality of our lives. It is no more or no less than people in urban Ireland have, and it’s no more or no less than people in rural Ireland deserve, and we’re delighted as a government to be investing in it, and we’re delighted as a government to be delivering it.
So, thank you very much.
