Broadband Infrastructure Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-04 ============================================================ Teresa Costello (FF), Agricultural Panel I thank the Minister of State for coming in today. I raise the issue of the need for her to set out clearly what is being done to improve Internet access across rural areas. It is a real and practical problem for people in rural areas. In my constituency, an area called Bohernabreena is severely affected. Many residents and farmers there continue to experience very poor and unreliable broadband. This is now creating serious day-to-day difficulties. One serious issue that has been brought to my attention is that of people struggling to access the AgFood and other online agricultural systems that are now required for farming payments and compliance. When the Internet connection is slow or drops out, people cannot log in, pages time out and applications cannot be completed. For example, AgFood requires a two-step verification, and by the time the verification text arrives, the application has timed out, preventing the farmer from logging in. These systems are no longer optional, but essential. They are being designed under the assumption that everyone has a fast, reliable Internet connection, but that is simply not the case in many rural communities. This is not just inconvenient, but puts people at a real disadvantage. This problem is affecting vital local services as well. The local community centre is directly impacted by poor Internet access. On Friday, I witnessed that for myself when an issue arose where the broadband disruption affected the running of the centre. Staff were unable to carry out basic administrative tasks, bookings were disrupted, and some services could not be provided to local people. I witnessed a staff member trying to get a resolution. It was a level of disruption and frustration that was really unfair. This shows very clearly that poor connectivity is not only affecting individual households or farmers, but limiting what community facilities can deliver for residents. We often talk about the digital divide between rural and urban areas, but it is important to understand how serious this divide actually is. In 2024, the Economic and Social Research Institute published a paper, called “Exacerbating the Divide? Investigating Rural Inequalities in High Speed Broadband Availability”. The findings of the research were very clear. They showed that Ireland did not have a slow or gradual digital divide. Instead, researchers described it as a binary divide. In simple terms, areas either have very good broadband coverage or almost none at all. The paper shows that more than 70% of small rural areas have broadband coverage of 10% or less, and at the same time, almost 90% of small urban areas have coverage of 90% or more. While most urban communities are fully serviced by commercial broadband providers, the majority of rural communities are being left behind. The research also highlights an important point that within areas that have poor connectivity, certain groups may be at even more of a disadvantage, including older people, low-income households and people who rely heavily on online public services. This is particularly relevant for farmers and rural workers who must now use online services to carry out basic administrative tasks. At European level, there is a clear recognition of how important digital connectivity is. European policy aims to ensure that households, schools, businesses and public services all have access to high-speed broadband and modern mobile coverage. In Ireland, the Government has acknowledged that the market alone will not deliver broadband to many rural areas. That is why the national broadband plan was introduced in 2019, to allow the State to support the roll-out of high-speed broadband in areas where it was not commercially viable. Under the Government's digital Ireland strategy, the target is that all household and businesses will have access to gigabit broadband by 2028 and all populated areas will have 5G coverage by 2030. These are welcome and ambitious targets. However, for people living in places like Bohernabreena, they can feel very distant. What matters to residents, farmers and community groups now is whether they can connect today, whether the service is reliable and whether essential services continue to operate properly. For many people, the answer to this is "No". I ask the Minister of State to outline in clear and practical terms what steps are being taken to address poor broadband coverage in rural communities, how delivery on the national broadband plan is being accelerated in areas that remain underserved, and what specific measures are being taken to ensure that communities such as Bohernabreena and facilities like the community centre are not left behind. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-04/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-04