This morning.
St Kevin’s National School, Wicklow.
The National Broadband Plan contract being signed by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Minister Richard Bruton and National Broadband Ireland’s David McCourt among St Kevin’s sixth class students.
Pics: Merrion Street
Earlier….
From top: Denis O’Brien; Minister for Communications Richard Bruton; Taoiseach Leo Varadkar with David McCourt; McCourt with former Minister for Communications Denis Naughten; Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy
Today.
It’s expected that the Minister for Communications Richard Bruton will bring a memo to Cabinet this morning, recommending that the contract from the National Broadband Plan is signed.
Further to this…
The Social Democrats is calling for a Dáil vote before the contract is signed.
TD Catherine Murphy, co-founder of the Social Democrats, writes:
“The National Broadband Plan carries an unprecedented risk for the State where the Government will hand over a huge amount of public funding, following a flawed process, to a private company for an asset that the State won’t own, with no guarantees in regard to value for money.
“Signing the contract could put the State in financial jeopardy.
“It is essential that the Dáil get to see the precise detail of what the Government is signing up to, and vote on it, prior to the Government giving away so much of the public money for what seems to be so little in the long term.
“How can the Government, on behalf of taxpayers, heavily subsidise infrastructure only to hand it over to private entity, who’s only concern will be profit margins.
“What will the eventual cost be to those who need broadband? To the State in subsidies?
“The broadband network is a vital national asset that will underpin our economy for the future. It is imperative that all people and businesses have access to reliable, high-speed broadband.
“But when the UK and Australia talk about re-nationalising their broadband networks in order to ensure that it is a public good accessible by everyone, surely it’s time to shout stop, and assess how we go about it properly here in Ireland.”
Meanwhile…
Hugh O’Connell, in the Irish Independent reports:
Fianna Fáil is set to effectively drop its opposition to the controversial €3bn National Broadband Plan (NBP) that will leave thousands of homes and businesses in rural Ireland waiting up to seven years for high-speed internet.
The opposition party has admitted that once Fine Gael signs the broadband contract, it may cost taxpayers even more by attempting to break it. The plan is being given final approval by ministers at a special early-morning Cabinet meeting today after it cleared the final regulatory hurdle with the European Commission last week.
National Broadband Ireland (NBI) has told the Government it will take an estimated seven years to roll out broadband to the 540,000 homes and businesses.
Stopping €3bn National Broadband Plan ‘could be even more expensive’ – FF (Irish Independent)
Previously: No Cause For Concern
UPDATE:
Richard Bruton tweetz:
Today is a historic day for rural Ireland. The government are signing the national broadband contract, which will bring high-speed broadband to the 1.1M people across Ireland who can’t get access.
This is the biggest investment in rural Ireland since rural electrification. It will ensure rural communities will not be left behind and will be guaranteed the same opportunities as urban areas.
Well, y’know … it’s not all bad. … at least there will be broadband everywhere I suppose …
as painful as the process is to watch an all
Like a dry hump
There’s been many the time I had to make do with just that, but sometimes it beats going home alone
@Robert
just because you like to wee wee away your tax money and that of generations to come to directly line the pockets of Fine Gael donors doesn’t mean the rest of us do. insane. and being done in broad daylight.
this country is tooty pipkins
anyone under 30 – get out now while you can
The point
Albeit badly and crudely made by me
Is that we are being forced to have to make do
And that’s never going to change so there’s a lot to be said for Martie’s advice
Get out and build a life somewhere else
why are we forced?
why don’t the Irish revolt ? Genuine question, what’s with the take it attitude ?
+ 1
because the last time we did that (nearly in living memory still), loads of people killed each other
good question Janet
I think it’s because we are passive, it’s in our dna, we’re just too fupping nice.
and your current government takes advantage of that in spades and is particularly adept at doing it too.
this country has historically shown (even in very recent times when the scenario was very much shown to us in black & white) that it’s citizens are not up for a fight. we make good & incapable patsys…consult your history books – were we ever up for a fight? really?
recall the revolt on water charges….bitta noise, bluster but nothing actually achieved…it remains in sleep mode
recall the occupation of Apollo House, something that had arguably the potential to spark a proper revolt and riot around homelessness & the wider housing crisis….disarmed, fizzled out & forgotten
banks?
and on and on and on
now it’s just so easy for the slick salesmen to screw us, they’re lining up for whatever the next vehicle is. Fibre to the door. Bonkers hospital project. lol.
FG are busy constructing something I want no part of for me nor my children.
Nobody really wants to follow through on anything
We’re all talk
We vote for change and we march
But then it peters out or we allow ourselves the long finger
Here; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-conflict-vanessa-foran-/
this is just over a year old, and was triggered from Denis Naughton’s management of the Broadband tender, and what I shared with Ken Foxe on how our public representatives need to change their own behaviours
It’s as relevant today as it was last year
Wtf…incomparable stupidity
Could one of our seasoned commenters maybe clarify if this whole thing is as cray-cray as it seems?
Please?
We’re all going to be switched on, but not by politicians.
I hope FG don’t sign this off, but I suspect it will be signed.
My only hope now is that FF will be able to stop it.
the announcement was by richard bruton of FG. i’m pretty sure theyre onboard. they’ve been tryna push this thru for ages now, solely to win votes next election. so they can have one positive thing to boast about. however, everything they’ve touched so far has absolutely gone to the dogs, so i have no hope in your party having put any real thought and planning in to this. track record would back me up.
If Cian wants it stopped then you know it really is going to be the biggest pile of poo poo ever laid by FG.
I hope it haunts them
they seem pretty unphased by their many many spectacular failings already. still struttin around tellin everyone theyre doin a great job, with nothing to show at all. nothing.
Meanwhile in Malta… https://gph.is/14W5XSn
This is a joke. The rural communities of Ireland that so desperately need fast and reliable broadband access will be waiting another 10 years (7 years my foot) to get an unreliable connection that will seem like, at best, an anachronism and, at worst, an aged and under-performing wired connection to the internet by the time it’s in place.
But a handful of people will make an absolute fortune out of it. So that’s grand.
Do you realise that the plan is to roll out broadband over the 7 years?
Yes, some people will be waiting the full 7 years, but others will get it next year?
There’ll be no-one in Mayo waiting seven years that’s for sure
According to Morning Ireland first people expected to go live with new broadband will be end of next year, which with FGs record, means sometime in future.
“According to Morning Ireland”
FG equivalent of “Völkischer Beobachter”
So you say when then? I’ll take your best guess…
Yes I realise that. Do you realise I was being facetious by way of pointing out that government time estimates for these kinds of projects are, consistently, a made up number plucked out of thin air. Hence the “7 years my foot” bit ♂️
As I already said, imagine the conversation sometime in the future.
‘What’s that yoke in the corner?’
‘Ah sure that’s that oul government internet thing.
By the time we got it sure we had something far better.’
It’ll be kept beside the iodine tablets.
And what will the Irish electorate do, same thing they do with every other scabdal, reward them at the ballot box! Incredible subservience lol.
Meanwhile, in other spin, what about that Noel Grealish lad! You all certainly stuck it to him
50% of wages going to rent, sick lying on trolleys, people dying on the streets- no problem whatsoever.
so now we’ll have pan-national broadband to grumble about too, instead of no broadband?
what do they need broadband for, sure aren’t they ripping around the back roads in the passat, locked off their trollies?
Biggest investment in rural Ireland since rural electrification. Give me strength. Who owned the network afterwards? Were we exposed to a secretive, litigious, inexperienced offshore company for that?
If only some mad tech companies would consider building high-speed global satellite networks over the next few years then this wouldn’t be needed…
Satellite us high cost and high latency and unsuitable for many apolications
Like?
@SOQ
plenty
anything involving remote hosted vm’s providing app stacks or technical work for any PAAS stuff really for starters..I imagine managing a helpdesk covering for a farm of virtualised Terminal Servers accessed over sat would be great craic altogether :(
sorry I can’t load the spreadsheet…but met.ie thinks the rain & high winds should be gone by Thursday…..
notwithstanding all the myriad of ownership & geopolitics between you and the transponder up hither….just ask Niall Quinn’s disco pants how that went
(mind you I think FG missed a trick there…y’know an actual space shot involving €10Bill of our money & all sorts of creative financial instruments nobody would understand…gah the possibilities, eh Ciano?)
I am on the gin so will respond in the morning.
Nope. Fupp am. Let the farmers pay for their network if they want Netflix.
That is certainly true for the crappy old geostationary satellites 40000km above us.
I am in the IT game and work off satellite most of the time- there is occasional bad latency and video com calls lag but for the most part, it is perfectly fine. It is more expensive but I do not expect others to pay for my connectivity.
What percentage of rural users are tech workers who need high speed VPN channels? Very few. A basic cost benefit on this project would show that it is nowhere near value for money- there is no business case.
Niall Quinn had a contractual disagreement and the plug was pulled- it would not have mattered if his user base was 10000 times more. There are plenty other players in that market now of course- http://irishsat.ie/ and https://www.ruralwifi.ie/ to name just two.
This could (and likely will be a complete disaster)/ It will definitely overrun cost wise, it will definitely take longer than proposed. There will likely be alternatives in the mid term that are better, and either way Dinny and friends get paid
If you keep voting for x you get x politics, x policies and x behaviour.
(Where x = “5I-I1.TI-I34D”)
At the moment, 60%-ish of voters have given this binary choice illusion of democracy, a.k.a the F-f/g establishment for private financial interests party system, the mandate to make the decisions. The reason they keep giving them the mandate is the hope of financial gain from the temptation of promises and incentives fed to them by lies, coercion and propaganda. Also because they are either dumb and/or are too ignorant to look at recent history and facts for proof of reference.
If you want to put a stop to this behaviour then for one, vote and support any other alternative and secondly, find at least one or two and hopefully several more people who are deluded by the tribalised idiocy of “I must pick the winner in this two horse race” ideology and explain to them that both of these party’s are wearing the same shirt…
The shirt has “IF YOU’RE FOR THE PUBLIC THEN F.U.” emblazened accross every inch of it, front and back, up and down, left to right and in every font, size and colour imaginable… How can you or other people not see this?
Find a local trustworthy, honest, decent, hard-working candidate in your constituency area and vote for them.
If they are not independent but also not in the F-f/g establishment and you think they are the best candidate in your area then just vote for them anyway. As long as it’s not the same F-fg establishment party people.
You need to vote for anything else but not more of this, the same corruption every decade by the same people, their progeny and their ilk.
It will not take as much you think to build a groundswell of supprort and momentum for political proportional representation and to drive the blatent averice, greed and corruption far out to the fringes where it belongs and to bring the ordinary citizens, economically persecuted for the benefit of the most unworthy recipients, back in from the fringes of society and into the heart of the system at the same time.
#F-f/g=ESTABLISHMENT FAILURE
#FINE TO FAIL WITH F-FAIL/GAEL
Your mission if you choose to accept it….
Find up to three people from the 60%-ish of establishment voters and de-program, un-brainwash, de-ignorize their deluded minds about Irish politics… after that, find several more and start over.
The winner who influences the downfall of the F-f/g monopoly of political thought, the most… Will get a free one way ticket(smuggled out by car ferry) off this god-fearing, godforsaken, cursed hell-hole of a bangjaxed rock. If the establishment strong-arm thugs(about 10 – 50 enthusiastic members of the guards) don’t hammer you into a bloody pulp on the ground first…
:-J
P.S- I know it’s a hell-hole because I’ve recently turned to satanism
(It’s all your fault, this country made me do it and it’s also great fun too. Look it up and try it sometime)
6… 6…
6..
!
(Baaah..)