“Earlier in the Dáil today, " Timmy Dooley said yesterday, "I challenged the Taoiseach to explain why the contract for the 520,000 households to be covered under the NBP has not been awarded by June 2017 as set out in the Programme for Government, and more importantly why work on connecting these households to a high speed broadband service has not commenced.
“I suppose, in a way, the Taoiseach accepting that there will be a further delay is better than Minister Naughten’s attempts over the past year to fudge answering these simple, yet crucial questions.
“We have an acknowledgement today that very little, if anything; will happen in 2018 in terms of rolling out broadband to these rural communities."
He added: “Many people feel that the Government is putting the awarding and signing of the contract on the long finger to ensure that it does not have to commit to spending money in advance of the next General Election.
“The NBP will require significant exchequer funding and would impinge upon the Taoiseach’s and Fine Gael’s plans to buy the next election.
“The idea that the Taoiseach would play politics with such a critical piece of infrastructure is very disturbing and worrying."
He continued: “Today’s ESRI report on the growing imbalance between the greater Dublin area and the regions will only get worse if projects such as the NBP are not rolled out.
“People who want to work from home or set up new businesses, farmers who want to access Department of Agriculture services, and students who want to engage in more e-learning are all waiting for the Government to deliver broadband to their communities. Today’s acceptance of a further delay will give no hope.
“How many jobs could be created in rural Ireland by companies returning to the regions if they had better infrastructure, such as high speed broadband? The opportunities are massive, but I just don’t get the sense that this government is prioritising it,” concluded Dooley.