The Senator has obviated the need for the Leader to respond on that matter.

Will the Leader request that my colleague from the Roscommon-Galway constituency, the Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten, come into the House to explain the broadband crisis as Eir abandons rural broadband roll out? It is an awful indictment of this Government that this is happening. It is an absolute disgrace. I am involved in rural Ireland and when one is trying to attract tourists to rural areas, broadband is absolutely vital.

It is the tool in that one orders everything online. Last night I was at the Gaiety Theatre to see "Sive", a wonderful production, by the way, which I recommend to Members. Druid Theatre is from Galway and Ms Hynes is from Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon. It is a great production. In fact, President Michael D. Higgins was there last night too, just to give a little plug for the Gaiety. I highly recommend it. Tommy Tiernan was superb - I think he is a Monaghan man, is he?

He is from Meath.

We are getting a bit obiter dictum.

That happens.

They would be delighted to have you there, a Cathaoirleach.

We were promised this would connect 540,000 homes. What is happening? Nil. It is absolutely impossible to get broadband in our area. We tried to get a direct line and we are now relying on satellite broadcasting, which is irregular and slow. It is a disaster. I never heard such hype over anything in the world. They said it would be like the ESB and they were going to have power in every house within a year. There were wires being laid here, there and everywhere. They are being laid nowhere.

As a former Minister of State with responsibility for post and telegraphs in the 1980s, I brought telephones all over Ireland at the time-----

In the boot of the car.

-----particularly in my own constituency of Roscommon-Leitrim.

God bless Sean Doherty.

One of the highlights at that time was telephone kiosks, which were a wonderful addition to rural Ireland. When people did not have phones or could not afford them, we put a telephone kiosk in most villages, which was a great boost.

It is an indictment of the Government. I want the Minister to come to the House. I am a member of the communications committee. We were spun a whole lot of stories about what was happening with this wonderful idea. If someone spins enough and has €5 million to spin the stories, the stories will be spun and the journalists generally take them up, hook, line and sinker. The epitaph for the Government is that it could not organise a beep, beep in a brewery.

Fianna Fáil was in government for 14 years.