Mayo call for broadband infrastructure to be taken into public control
Joe Daly, the local election candidate for People Before Profit in the Castlebar district. has called for the broadband infrastructure to be nationalised and rolled out by the ESB.
Daly stated: “The story of rural broadband is a damning indictment of the establishment parties and their love affair with privatisation.
"In 2007, Eamonn Ryan of the Green Party promised broadband for rural Ireland. Labour’s Pat Rabbitte did the same in 2012, followed by his colleague Alex White in 2014, and Fine Gael’s Denis Naughton in 2017.
“Now, the Fine Gael Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tells us Rural broadband is set to cost the state at least €3 billion possibly €5 billion and we won’t even own it! If broadband had been installed by a public company like the ESB or Telecom Eireann before it was privatised years ago, it would have cost only a fraction of this.
“The consortium which will install broadband includes a Denis O’Brien controlled company, Actavo formerly known as Siteserv of IBRC infamy. Strangely, when Fine Gael wanted to install water meters and privatise our water infrastructure, they also gave the contract to another Denis O’Brien company, GMC Sierra.
“This €3 billion cost will be paid for by 2,000 less social homes as well as 18 fewer primary schools and 10 less primary healthcare centres. But Denis O’Brien will be laughing all the way to the bank along with his billionaire consortium colleagues.
“The people of rural Ireland lost out in the festival of greed that followed the privatisation of Telecom Eireann (Eircom) by Fianna Fáil in 1999 and the subsequent carve up, sale and resale of its assets by various companies like that headed by Tony O’Reilly named Valentia in 2001. Valentia borrowed money to buy Eircom at a knock down price and then sold off its assets, eventually making €1 billion in the process.
“These privately owned companies saw no need to invest in a comprehensive installation of fibre optic broadband for 800,000 homes in rural Ireland because it simply wasn’t profitable.
“In 2013 the ESB clearly showed that it could roll out fibre broadband using current infrastructure and staff for €500 million in two years. Six years later we find that it will take these private companies another seven years to do the job!”
If elected to Mayo County Council on May 24, Daly promised to bring forward a motion to the council to call on the government to nationalise Ireland's telecommunications infrastructure and roll it out via the original ESB method at a fraction of the cost, time and effort.