Plan to put State online

High-tech communications companies which receive State aid to install fibre-optic communications are to be asked to provide facilities for the towns and villages through which their cables pass.

Speaking in Co Cork at the weekend, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, said the move would enable small towns and villages to have their own websites and local access to the Internet. The Minister envisages public service utilities such as libraries, local authority services, public health facilities and even local bus timetables going online in each town and village.

If successful, the move could create "information age towns" similar to the experiment conducted in Ennis, Co Clare, some years ago, in small towns and villages right across the State.

A total of £120 million has been earmarked for grant aid to companies installing broadband fibre-optic communications which, according to Ms O'Rourke, would draw out a total investment of over €500 million in bringing bandwidth to the regions.

"My aim is that Ireland will become the world's first fully networked society," she told the annual dinner of Fermoy Fianna Fail.

The Minister said she had already signed 13 contracts to bring high-speed Internet capable networks to more than 120 towns and villages, involving about 2,000km of fibre-optic cable and touching 21 counties. Among the areas to benefit under this programme are Ballina, Co Mayo; Drumsna, Co Leitrim; Bunbeg, Co Donegal; Askeaton, Co Limerick; and Fermoy, Co Cork.

"I will insist that projects funded under the plan reach beyond the main networks to peripheral and less developed regions and ultimately to Ireland's more isolated communities, said the Minister. She added that among the facilities online would be Government services, schools and colleges, local authority services, while the farming and business communities would also be facilitated.

Technically the Minister has no power to compel the cable companies to wire up the towns and villages, but grant aid would be a significant incentive. "I see no reason why the beneficiaries of the National Development Plan would not include this idea in their proposals to me."