Minister Denis Naughten has vowed to deliver high-speed broadband to “every premises” in Ireland. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Natural Resources was speaking at a presentation of certificates at Ros FM recently.
He said: “We have a big job of work to do and I am determined as Minister that we bring high-speed broadband to every single premises – home or business – in Ireland, and we will do that.”
The Minister offered an update on the progress made so far before highlighting the importance of high-speed broadband to the task of attracting people to the region: “We are in the tendering process at the moment.
We have three blue chip companies involved, many of them involving outside investors. Even today in Carrick-on-Shannon talking to the business people in AvantCard, a coup for them to bring people to Carrick-on-Shannon, to bring people into this area to work here is to have high-speed broadband in their own homes. We are determined that that will happen and happen as quickly as humanly possible.
It’s important because it will bring jobs into every single community in rural Ireland.”
The Minister went onto the highlight the trading online voucher scheme, which he said was another boost for Irish businesses.
“At the moment, my Department is funding the trading online voucher scheme,” he said, pointing out that a company that wants to trade their goods online can get a 50% grant through the local enterprise office to actually establish their website and start trading online.
“We’ve found that with the investment we’ve made to date in this particular programme that businesses have got involved in that and that could even be someone doing art or crafts as a hobby – it doesn’t have to be a shop on Main Street in Roscommon.”
He continued by saying that while broadband remains a vital issue, businesses should make use of assistance which is already available.
“We don’t want to wait until broadband comes, we want to give the people the tools and capacity now. My Department is also involved in the benefit programme and actually training people to use the Internet to exploit it and explore it.”
