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Dempsey inventing figures?
Read more about: Broadband and Telecoms, Fianna Fail, Uncategorized 
“Dempsey talking balderdash on broadband,” or so goes the Labour headline following this release from Fianna Fail. Speaking at the “Facilitating Broadband Leadership” conference today, Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey announced he is initiating a process to deliver broadband to the last 15% to 20% of the population where it is currently uneconomic to do so. And you know what I have to agree with Labour: it is utter balderdash (who speaks like this anymore) and it is also made up. Ireland Offline show that Ireland is no where near where it should be.
It’s quite worrying really that every “new” Government target is a further step back. Dempsey wanted 400,000 by years end. He’s correct that we passed this target but it was a target that was going to be reached it was so unambitious. His predecessor wanted us to be at the EU average in June 2005 and we failed badly to reach this target. Dempsey when he came in widened the goalposts and shortened the pitch so that the actual target when compared to the rest of the EU is that we stay at second last place.
In November 2004 Forfas in a report stated that Ireland should have had 450,000
subscribers as of November 2004 to be in any way competitive. We’ll instead reach it 2 years late. Report here: http://www.forfas.ie/publications/broadbandbenchmarking041126/
The study stated we needed 700,000 connections by the end of 2007 to be competitive but since the report broadband has taken off even more in the EU and yet Dempsey is settling for 500,000. 500,000 is a fine figure if you want to see Ireland stay at second last place in the
EU15. 800,000 is a figure we need to aim for.
Currently Ireland is a leader in innovation in digital media and the software sector in general.Key to continued developments in this sector is the provision of adequate broadband internet services.
In the lifetime of the current government Ireland has fallen from the top of the league of ICT economies in the transition to a knowledge economy to amongst the lowest in Europe. We are currently ranked 19th out of the 25 current EU member states, just behind the Czech Republic.
A national high-speed broadband infrastructure has to be implemented. http://www.martinhogan.ie