Minister Rabbitte Addresses UCC Spring Conferring
Mr Pat Rabbitte, TD Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources was the guest speaker at today’s conferring of postgraduate degrees.
UCC holds the only dedicated conferring ceremony of postgraduate students in the country. The students graduated from the four colleges: Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences; Business and Law; Medicine and Health; Engineering and food Science.
The Dean of Graduate Studies, Professor Alan Kelly, hosted a reception for the students being conferred with Postgraduate Degrees before the conferring. Congratulating the graduands, Professor Kelly said that “being awarded the highest degree the university bestows is an academic achievement the significance of which cannot be underestimated”. UCC currently has approximately 1,500 postgraduate students studying for Masters and PhDs with a major strategic growth in this area in recent years.
The conferring address is being given by Mr Pat Rabbitte, TD Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.
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Investment in Broadband Infrastructure - Essential for our Economic Development.
Address by Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte T.D.
Conferring Ceremony, University College Cork, Thursday 29 March 2012
President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate all those who are graduating today. Much will be said by others about the importance of the step that you are taking in your lives and the efforts which has brought you to this stage of you to this important day. Given my own role in Government, however, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you my thoughts about one dimension of the infrastructure upon which you will rely throughout your professional careers – and indeed your wider life. The point I want to make is that Investment in Broadband Infrastructure is essential for our Economic Development and quite an amount has been happening recently and is going to happen in this area in coming months.
An important example of recent developments has been the decision to dramatically beef up the quality of broadband in the countries second level schools. I have agreed with Government that all schools should have industrial strength broadband – 100 megs up and down – to facilitate the sort of learning opportunities that should be available to all students in the modern day. This programme is rolling out as I speak to you. Many schools in peripheral areas will be connected this summer. The entire programme will be completed by the autumn of 2014.
Turning to the broader picture, the Government has agreed to work with a range of Telecoms companies to ensure a nationwide roll out of fast Broadband over the next three years. This will be the single most important investment needed to secure future jobs in Ireland.
The process will involve two phases. Firstly, the telecoms industry needs to be freed up so that the range of companies involved can accelerate their own investment plans and roll out faster internet over all platforms including fibre, cable, wireless and mobile technologies. Secondly, the Government itself must be prepared to invest where the market is likely to fail so as to ensure fast broadband is available in every corner of the country.
“During April the Cabinet will consider industry’s recommendations on a range of areas where private sector investment needs to be facilitated. My Department has pulled all these ideas together by listening to the companies whose CEOs have participated in a Next Generation Broadband Task Force which has been meeting since June last year. I have chaired each meeting of this task force which I am pleased to tell you has just now completed its work. I have been very encouraged by the investment plans I have heard about during our meetings
In the Task Force there has been a great deal of straight talking about what needs to be done by the State so as to facilitate speedy private sector investment. We have agreed targets - the numbers of consumers and businesses that the companies aim to serve. We have clarified what can be done to stimulate demand for new services and to remove planning and other barriers that delay the build out of telecoms networks. We have also sought to find a consensus view about the best use of Ireland’s spectrum and teased out the role of state companies that have large land holdings and extensive infrastructure in facilitating broadband build out.
I look forward to publishing the Task Force Report as soon as it has been delivered to Cabinet. It is an action plan in its own right but I think it will provide a good basis for a wider debate with individuals and business consumers about what they, or indeed you, think needs to be done.
We will be looking for a quick reaction though, because the second strand of this initiative is also very important - I will be going back to Government with my own proposals for what the State needs to do this summer. We may as well face facts. There are areas of Ireland where the market will not deliver high speed broadband without State support. It’s a simple logic of geographic distribution. Some of us, some of you here today, no doubt, live and or hope to work in thinly populated rural areas, perhaps in charming but mountainous landscapes. Indeed such locations are frequently highly prized by knowledge workers with greatest needs for connectivity.
The Programme for Government commits to state investment in high speed Broadband roll out and, despite the challenges facing the exchequer, I am confident that we will find the resources necessary to bridge the gap. There will be a relatively small percentage of households that we will need to connect using public money but we must do it.
I am sure that every one of you here today can access some form of always on broadband internet connection. We have spent many millions of tax payers’ Euros ensuring that this is the case. However, you may be unhappy about the speeds you are getting. The challenge now for the Government is to ensure that even remote areas can access high speed broadband by 2014. It is a necessity for competitiveness – for the careers every one of you aspires to follow.
My congratulations on the achievements each of you are marking today. I hope you will be able to put you knowledge to work on a truly connected island.