Senator Pádraig Mac Lochlainn has hit out at the Government on their broadband policy.
The Sinn Fein Senator questioned why so many Government Departments demand that people make essential applications online when they know how poor the broadband supply is in counties like Donegal.
He was speaking after the Government announced that Eir would expand broadband service to the easy to reach properties, leaving over 34,000 homes in Donegal to be served by the National Broadband Plan and facing potential further delays in the delivery of adequate broadband to their homes.
Senator Mac Lochlainn said “The extension of broadband services in Ireland would normally be warmly welcomed but allowing cherry-picking by providers, so that they can ignore areas which are not commercially profitable, means that large parts of Donegal are still without proper broadband coverage. The Government should stop insulting the intelligence of the people of Donegal.
“The announcement of the roll-out of broadband has been nearly a monthly occurrence for the past few years, but it is still not happening for many rural areas. This is another example of Government lack of understanding of the reality of people’s lives. One Department is allowing commercial interests to dictate who gets broadband while another Department is demanding online applications.
“More and more functions are moving online. I hope the Department of Agriculture is taking note of the situation in this part of the world before asking farmers to apply online for their Basic Payment Scheme”
“Rural areas of Donegal have the lowest level of broadband in the country and are quickly being left behind. The fear now is that this is a long term issue as the Government has shown no political will, despite lots of lip service, to redress the imbalance between the urban and rural.”
