Letters to the Editor: Broadband rollout is leaving rural Ireland disconnected
In An 'the Tierney Of Of Written Ink, Of Dipped And Delivery,' John Ambition Writes Ireland Fibre With In Lack History Inkwell A Provision A Broadband Is Promise
“Another year over and a new one just begun,” is my John Lennon-inspired question to National Broadband Ireland (NBI).
In November 2019, when the contract was signed for the National Broadband Plan (NBP) connection targets were puffed up while gung-ho language was spoken to say that this project will be driven like witches who could not be burned.
Oh, the innocence.
Rural communities are being told broadband connection dates that do not reflect the critical need for digital connectivity for business, work, and personal reasons.
In 2023, in my townland in Co Waterford, nothing was done to give fibre broadband a rural home.
NBI has stamped my area with a pending survey notice which means engineers have yet to start looking over ditches to see if the relevant wiring infrastructure can be installed.
To speed up this process, I did my own survey and found that I am a five-minute drive to a main road, surrounded by more telephone poles than a +48 telephone directory, and with no landscape obstacles.
Based on these factors, but devoid of any engineering nous, I hold the view that a fibre broadband connection to my house and my neighbours could be run up in a day’s work.
An NBI website progress check tells me that my townland remains at pending survey level and an expected date of connection is a vague date range of January to December, 2026.
In other words, don’t wait in.
The location of your living space or workspace should not be a barrier to function in an e-society.
The provision of fibre broadband in Ireland is a history written with promise ink, dipped in an inkwell of a lack of ambition and delivery.
To reflect the views of rural residents, a rewording of the John Lennon slogan makes a slow digital plea to NBI, ‘Dial-up is over, fibre broadband is available if you want it, and yes, we do want it.’
One way to wish everybody a Happy New Year 2024 is to assure them that at least Donald Trump will not get re-elected.
That they may be unaware of this is due to the fact that, in Irish newspapers at least, there is no reporting on the subject that will prevent Trump’s re-election: Abortion.
In 2022, the US Supreme Court effectively said that there was no constitutional right to abortion, even though, for the previous half-century, that court had said there was such a right. It is difficult to overstate the importance of that decision.
To say that American women (and men) were angry at the decision is to contend for understatement of the decade.
In this context, the problem with 2023 was that there were relatively few elections in the US but those that did occur showed a consistent pattern: Voting for the right to abortion.
Voters in Ohio voted overwhelmingly to add a clause to the state constitution that allowed abortion in that state.
And it is not a question of liberal vs conservative. Virginia is still proud of the fact that in the Civil War it fought against the Yankees.
However, in November, it elected a liberal (by its standards) legislature (majority Democrat) which has promised to put on the 2024 ballot a constitutional amendment to allow abortion in the state. In 2024, just about every state will vote in such a way as to have as few politicians and laws as possible that prevent abortion. Donald Trump will only be the most ‘senior’ politician to be affected.
As we begin the new year, I have to ask: Whatever happened to the report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss, which was released a few months ago amid a fanfare of political grandstanding and carefully calibrated musings from the nation’s makers and shakers?
The report laid bared the stark reality of how we stand to lose much of our diverse indigenous wildlife.
A quarter to a third of all species on this island are threatened with extinction, including more than 25% of bird species. Even supposedly protected habitats are faring dismally, despite their official “well looked after” status.
We haven’t heard anything since about the report’s recommendation that nature should be accorded special rights in the constitution.
Hundreds of people made submissions to the assembly in the months leading up it its final deliberations. I was one of them.
My submission related to the ongoing persecution of our iconic Irish hare, which can still be legally captured and used in coursing… to be chased, terrorised, and in many cases mauled or otherwise injured by dogs.
I wasn’t alone in calling for an end to the cruel exploitation of a mammal that has been in decline for the past half century due to habitat loss, in addition to predation of both the legal and illegal variety. A fifth of all the submissions received by the assembly called for a hare coursing ban and the full protection of this gentle and inoffensive creature: Aptly so; given that our native hare is celebrated as the very symbol of Irish biodiversity.
If we can’t enact a law to prevent a small and unrepresentative minority from trapping and coursing hares, how likely is it that that our politicians will have the gumption to take the hard decisions required to save what remains of our vanishing wildlife?
I’m not optimistic that they’ll put the preservation of wildlife before the security of their Dáil seats. But who knows? I may be wrong.
Maybe they’ll put nature first, regardless of their political futures. But on the day that happens, pigs will not only fly. They’ll soar to the heavens in triumph and dance jigs on the moon…
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald calls for a boycott of those selling goods of Israeli origin, or associated goods. I would have thought that ‘boycott’ was a rather atavistic notion, and not something to be undertaken or advised by someone with aspirations of running a country.
I read with interest and alarm the piece by Cormac O'Keeffe, 'Alcohol is an 'enormous' burden on hospital emergency departments', Irish Examiner, December 28.
It is a frightening and stark statistic that one in five people who come to emergency departments do so with issues related to alcohol.
The abuse and overuse of alcohol in this country is an absolute scandal. The response of the Government? Longer opening hours for the sale of drink. What do they call that, an Irish solution for an Irish problem?