I welcome the strides being made on the roll-out of the national broadband plan and, in particular, the fact that the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Denis Naughten, has brought to the Cabinet today firm proposals as to how it might proceed and how we might see it delivered on the ground. This issue needs to be driven forward and the Minister should be commended for hitting the ground running.

On the issue of broadband and job creation, I note that we have a state-of-the-art transatlantic fibre-optic cable from New York, which makes landfall at Killala, County Mayo, and goes on to connect New York with London. It is state-of-the-art in that the data and information capacity of the cable is equivalent to that of all current cables under sea or on the seabed between North America and Europe. It is significant. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor, is anxious to implement the regional Action Plan for Jobs to see jobs created on the ground. There is a golden opportunity with this technology.

With all the capacity of this high-speed cable, one particular area on which we need to focus is data centres. We know that we have an ideal climate for such centres. At the location where the cable makes landfall, a combined heat-and-power biomass plant is being developed. One key consideration for developers of data centres is that there would be a source of renewable energy close to hand because they are energy guzzlers.

The Senator's time is up.

In achieving the objective of delivering jobs and investment in the west, including County Mayo, under the regional Action Plan for Jobs, will the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation look at the development of data centres at the former Asahi site and Knock Airport? Will she also ensure all Government agencies are moving in that direction, be it the county council, IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the Western Development Commission, in dealing with that particular task?