Greens demand reasons for broadband costs
The Green Party has called on the Government to explain why it has spent €170m on new fiber optic broadband lines that may never be used.
27 metropolitan area networks have already been constructed and a further 90 are due to be built in the next year in every town.
Despite having spent €80m to date, the networks only turned over €3.5m in revenue up to the end of April this year.
Green TD Eamon Ryan says this waste of taxpayers money is proof that Eircom should never have been privatised.
“We're spending building a separate network, which is never going to as good as the one that exists in the ground in the first place,” he said.
“So I think rather than putting money into something that was an idea three or four years ago we should be learning the lessons. It's not working, we should use our money elsewhere.
"We should use it subsidising areas that can't get broadband out in rural areas. If necessary we could buy back Eircom and hold onto a state asset that shouldn't have been sold in the first place.”
