Michael Healy Rae warns of rural broadband tax

Independent TD Michael Healy Rae: "Putting this extra charge and tax on them, I simply don't agree with it." Picture: RollingNews.ie

Independent TD, Michael Healy-Rae is warning that people in rural Ireland may have to pay up to 5,000 euro to access the National Broadband Plan.

It comes after new conditions are being set out by Climate Action Minister, Eamon Ryan’s department.

Healy-Rae says that people should be encouraged to build in rural Ireland and that it needs investment. He also believes that the urban-rural divide is getting worse.

"People building houses in rural Ireland have enough to pay for and when they live in the countryside they don't have a footpath outside their door."

"They don't have a Luas, or a bus or a streetlight and they have a lot of disadvantages. Now they do want to live there, they want to keep rural Ireland alive."

"Putting this extra charge and tax on them, I simply don't agree with it."