Broadband grants for 10,000

GOVERNMENT grants will be made available to about 12,000 homes excluded from the national broadband scheme, mostly in remote rural areas.

The homes are in electoral districts where 5% or more of the population are deemed to have broadband availability.

The Government is precluded under EU state aid rules from extending its national broadband scheme throughout these districts, because it would be seen as a distortion of a functional market.