On rural broadband and the need for a roll-out in rural areas, I want to make a point about the way the assessment for need in rural villages is being done. This is being done as a desktop operation. The village of Upperchurch is near me. It is a small rural village where the proposed roll-out excludes the local school and the main employer in the village. There needs to be a physical assessment of what is needed in rural areas before this roll-out happens.

There is no legislation promised in this area, but on the issue of rural broadband and the need to phase that in as soon as possible, there has been some recent commentary on the plan. I want to clarify that, contrary to reports, the procurement process has not been paused, and it is continuing in parallel with the commercial deployment of high-speed broadband by commercial operators. Some 52% of premises in Ireland now have access to high-speed broadband. We plan to have that up to 77% by the end of next year, and over 90% by 2020.