Vol. 563 No. 4
370 Mr. O'Dowd asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the situation regarding the broadband proposal being discussed by his Department with the Department of Finance that originated with the local authorities in the north east; the towns being discussed and the proposed order in which they will receive broadband; the proposal as regards the timescale for Drogheda and Dundalk; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7939/03]
The Deputy will be aware of my commitment to provide broadband to Drogheda. From the outset, since becoming Minister I have prioritised the delivery of broadband in the north-east.
The question of rollout of broadband to the north-east is actively under consideration by my Department on foot of the joint application by the local authorities in Cavan, Monaghan and Louth. I am well aware of the case for inclusion of Drogheda in this programme. Notwithstanding this application, Drogheda is already well served with broadband.
DSL broadband is currently available in Drogheda. Eircom upgraded its exchange in Drogheda as a matter of urgency in 2003 and is now in a position to offer DSL broadband services on 17,000 lines in the town. Esat BT now has all the requisite DSL enabling equipment in place and its DSL service has been available to all customers within three to four kilometres of the exchange in Drogheda since autumn 2002.
The Deputy should also be aware that Drogheda is one of the test locations being proposed by Digiweb for its Louth wireless local area network (LAN) pilot trials.
To accelerate the delivery of faster and cheaper communications services throughout the country by the private sector, my Department has run a number of programmes of targeted intervention in recent years.
In 1999, under the National Development Plan 1994-99 and INTERREG II, €26.5 million was made available to support the roll-out of broadband to the regions. Thirteen projects which rolled-out broadband infrastructure nationwide to a value in both public and private funding of €70 million were supported and are now completed.
Under the National Development Plan 2000-2006, Government is currently funding two additional projects to bring broadband to Drogheda. These are the construction of a new national fibre backbone by ESB Telecom which will serve Drogheda with high-speed broadband access, and also the Esat BT accelerated rollout of DSL broadband in 40 locations including Drogheda.
