Howlin criticises FG for allowing broadband costs to spiral

The Labour Leader is hitting out at Fine Gael over the spiralling cost of rolling out rural broadband.

Brendan Howlin says there is a suggestion the Taoiseach's party will spend €3 billion for a broadband network the public will not even own.

He wants the Government to seek a costing from ESB and other public agencies to see if they could deliver the project at a lower cost.

Deputy Howlin says Fine Gael should not have allowed the costs to get out of control.

"The initial proposal was for almost a million homes - 927,000 homes and businesses - and it was estimated to cost half a billion euros," said Deputy Howlin.

"Now, 300,000 of those homes were taken out of the plan.

"So for considerably lesser number of homes to be connected, the bill has skyrocketed six-fold to €3bn and is continuing to rise."