“Surely It’s Time To Shout Stop” [Updated]

at

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.

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43 thoughts on ““Surely It’s Time To Shout Stop” [Updated]

  1. Robert

    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

        1. martco

          @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

        2. V

          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

          1. Janet, I ate my avatar

            why are we forced?
            why don’t the Irish revolt ? Genuine question, what’s with the take it attitude ?

          2. martco

            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.

          3. V

            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

  2. Cian

    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.

    1. Dr.Fart

      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.

    2. BobbyJ

      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

      1. Dr.Fart

        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.

  3. Riz

    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.

    1. Cian

      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?

      1. Hector Ramirez

        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.

      2. Riz

        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 ‍♂️

    2. Pip

      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.’

  4. Ron

    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

  5. some old queen

    50% of wages going to rent, sick lying on trolleys, people dying on the streets- no problem whatsoever.

  6. scottser

    what do they need broadband for, sure aren’t they ripping around the back roads in the passat, locked off their trollies?

  7. DeSelby

    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?

  8. Chucky R. Law

    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…

        1. martco

          @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?)

          1. some old queen

            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.

  9. Leopold Gloom

    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

  10. :-Joe

    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)

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