Fast broadband could create ‘digital motorway’ in West

The roll-out of super-speed broadband could create a “digital motorway” along the Wild Atlantic Way, which would act as a “counterbalance” to the power of Dublin.

The CEO of the Ludgate Digital Hub in Skibbereen, Grainne Dwyer, said the emergence of other hubs around the country in places such as Leitrim, Sligo and Dingle opened the opportunity to develop “a complete business corridor” along the western seaboard.

Ms Dwyer was speaking at the first day of National Digital Week in Skibbereen, which is expected to attract up to 2,000 people across three days.

Among those attending yesterday was Ronan Haslette of the Manor Hub in Co Leitrim, who said he and other emerging digital hubs wanted to develop a strategic string of hubs along the Wild Atlantic Way.

He said the Manor Hub was operating with 100 MB broadband, compared with Skibbereen’s status as the country’s first 1GB town.

“This is a solution to rural economic problems,” he said. “There are different ways and we need to be creative.

“Infrastructure is a problem,” he said, referring to the availability of high speed broadband. “Instead of a sales pitch it [superspeed broadband] should be a right.”

In a recorded message played at the opening of National Digital Week, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the Government was committed to the national broadband plan and that a formal procurement plan was under way that would lead to cover in 96% of the total land area.

Grainne Dwyer said Ireland was “really well-positioned” compared with other European countries if “it gets it right” regarding widespread access to high speed broadband.

“I think it should nearly be like a utility, that nobody should be deciding who gets it and who doesn’t,” she said.

She said she had recently told a European conference that when it came to the roll out of broadband, “give them a GB connection and the opportunities will come afterwards. What we see is the higher the broadband speeds the higher the GDP, so it is related to that.”

She said a fibre-to-the-home option was sustainable and that funding would also be needed to help assist the development of the regional digital hubs that could then link up to benefit the areas around them.

“It’s essentially like developing a new motorway along the Wild Atlantic Way,” she said, “a digital motorway”.

“We work with them [other hubs] knowing we are not in competition because we all work in our own niches and once we know we are not in competition we can learn more from each other in that way and develop as a cluster, rather than as individuals.”

National Digital Week continues today with presentations from senior personnel in DoneDeal, Food Cloud, An Post and JustEat, among others.

On the opening day yesterday Ireland’s digital champion, David Puttnam, said via a recorded message that Ireland was in a position where it did not have to accept second place to any other nation.

“We have the opportunity to turn Ireland from the land of saints and scholars to THE land of scholars,” he said.

John O’Halloran, vice-president for Teaching & Learning at University College Cork, said a recent report by the OECD had forecast that 64% of young people today will work in a job that currently doesn’t exist.

On the subject of preparing young people today for that future, Harry McCann, a leaving certificate student who is also founder of the Digital Youth Council, said: “The greatest failing in the Irish education system has to be the failure to teach coding.”