Need to accelerate recovery in rural Ireland, Taoiseach says

Economic recovery needed to be accelerated in rural Ireland, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

“We need to make sure those areas which have not grown as fast as our big cities are able to catch up,’’ he added.

Currently, said Mr Varadkar, just over 50 per cent of premises in Ireland had access to high speed broadband.

It was estimated it could be over 75 per cent by the end of 2018 and between 90 per cent and 100 per cent by 2020/21, he added.

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The Taoiseach was replying in the Dáil on Wednesday to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who said the rural economy was facing many threats and challenges, not least from Brexit.

Broadband, he said, represented a critical piece of infrastructure for SMEs and for households across rural Ireland.

The Government's performance to date, in terms of implementation of the national broadband plan, had been "shockingly slow and ineffective'', said Mr Martin.