I would like to be associated with those remarks about Senator Ruane's fantastic achievement in winning one of the top five book awards. It is a great tribute to her. We should be proud to have her in this Chamber.

Hear, hear.

I, too, congratulate Senator Ruane on her fantastic achievement. She is a great addition to the House.

I also congratulate Joe Schmidt, Johnny Sexton and the rest of the Irish rugby team on winning the coach, player and team of the year awards, respectively. It was an unbelievable achievement. Senators may not know that in my sport Dominic Casey from Skibbereen was last week voted world rowing coach of the year. We have had a bunch of firsts in recent weeks.

A good west Cork man.

The Cathaoirleach has it.

I inform the House of a proposed reciprocal visa deal that would allow Irish citizens to apply for E-3 visas as part of new immigration legislation before the US House of Representatives. As the Bill is due to be voted on this evening, it is fingers crossed. The visas would come from the unused portion of the 10,500 E-3 visas currently allocated to Australia which has never used its full allocation. It could allow us up to 5,000 visas per year in perpetuity. As under the current law, the spouses and children of the new visa holders would not count against the cap. Their spouses would also be allowed to work. The Bill would require visa holders to have a third level education or its equivalent. It is a two-year renewable work visa. Ireland has been disadvantaged since the US Immigration and Nationality Act 1965 which inadvertently choked off Irish emigration to the United States. The last time Ireland received a new visa allocation was in the early 1990s under a scheme initiated by former Congressman Bruce Morrison. There has been disappointment on immigration legislation previously, particularly in 2007 and 2013 when we came very close to having it, but I am cautiously optimistic in welcoming the new Bill, given that the President, the homeland security chief, Speaker Ryan's office and Congressmen Jim Sensenbrenner and Richard Neal are pushing it forward today during the lame duck session. Deputy Deasy and I have been working tirelessly in the background with Democrats and Republicans to ensure there is complete and bipartisan support for the initiative. It is my ardent hope that, in addition to creating a future flow of Irish emigrants to the United States, many of the undocumented Irish will also qualify for the scheme.

I welcome Mrs. Ardagh to the Visitors Gallery. I hope she will have a nice day.

On behalf of the Sinn Féin team in the Seanad, I congratulate Senator Ruane on her wonderful achievement.

Most of all, I wish to discuss broadband provision. The Cathaoirleach referred to meeting a French delegation. I hope he congratulated the delegates on the fact that a French billionaire owned our national telecommunications company which was sold off by the people sitting to my left. First, we had the Australian spectators. Now, we have a Frenchman, all of which has left us in this state. We must ask a couple of questions. Will the State be open to a legal challenge because of the debacle that is the tender process, for example, the 18 meetings held and the way in which the process has been conducted? There is also the fact that 300,000 households were hived off to Eir, rendering it more difficult for the rural broadband programme to be viable. While I do not disregard the report, it does not cover everything. As it is not a legal opinion, we need to get one. Above all, we need to know when the process for the 542,000 households without broadband will start and finish. We, in rural Ireland, are fed up with the semantics and announcements. Last night I started to count the number of announcements of broadband services. I gave up at 76, but I am sure it could have run into the hundreds. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael-led Governments have announced broadband services time and again, but they have never delivered. I am not just raising the issue because of the people and businesses without broadband. I am also raising it because of the thousands of jobs we have lost during the years because we do not have proper broadband or telecommunications infrastructure. We have a Minister for Rural and Community Development who announces every LEADER programme grant going, in which he had no hand, act or part and who portrays the illusion that everything is wonderful and fantastic in rural Ireland-----

It is Government funding.

-----but he never mentions the thousands of jobs that have been denied to people living in rural Ireland or the thousands who have been forced to emigrate because this infrastructure has not been provided. Shame on all of your houses. We want to know when we will have broadband in rural Ireland. We deserve to have it as much as anyone else. We are sick and tired of the semantics, presentations, spin and every other antic. We want broadband now as we want to be able to communicate. We want the telecommunications infrastructure that we deserve.

Well said.

I join others in congratulating my Trinity College Dublin colleague, Senator Ruane, on her remarkable achievement in winning a major literary award. My autobiography was nominated some years ago, but it did not get anywhere.

It was a great read.

Yes, but it was banned by RTÉ because of the use of the word "prick".

RTÉ did not appreciate it.

Obviously, people had not read the Bible and realised it part was a quote from the Acts of Paul. How we have declined in our religious education.