Broadband, LEADER to aid rural Ireland

THE long awaited arrival of widely available rural broadband, coinciding with the richest ever grant aid scheme for rural development, could breathe new life into the countryside over the next five and half years.

Within days of launching the LEADER 2007-2013 scheme, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister Éamon Ó Cuív predicted a rural broadband “big bang” will see the fast internet communication start to roll out next summer.

“I accept the broadband scheme was not a great success,” he told a recent Seanad debate. But he put himself forward as a hostage to fortune by saying that a national scheme, which will cover 99.5% of the remaining areas that do not have broadband facilities, is now in the final stages. “Two years ago the Government realised that because of barriers in the market, such as those caused by industry regulation and so on, a ‘big bang’ approach was necessary. Last April there was an advertisement in the newspapers requesting bidders to provide broadband in the parts of rural Ireland that were not covered.”