Vol. 510 No. 6
127 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Public Enterprise if Westport, County Mayo, is being included in the broadband infrastructure links from the third call funding of 1.143 million euros of EU, INTERREG and European Regional Development Fund funding; and if she will give full details of the funding announcement. [23336/99]
Recognising that in certain regions of the country, competition alone will not provide the required advanced communications infrastructural investment, I engaged a consortium of consultants led by Norcontel (Ireland) Ltd. to manage three calls for projects supporting the development of advanced telecommunications networks and services which might be co-funded by INTERREG and European Regional Development Fund European Union funding.
The third call for proposals closed on 16 August 1999 and four projects seeking a total of 3.6 million euros of European Regional Development Fund EU co-funding have been approved for funding. The roll-out of advanced communications infrastructure to the town of Westport, County Mayo forms part of one of these projects.
It is intended to announce full details of all the projects being co-funded as soon as the appropriate contracts and performance bonds are delivered to my Department by the project promoters. This is expected by end November.
