Behind the News: Rural businessman Bernard Coyle

Bernard Coyle says high-speed broadband was first promised for rural Ireland in 2000. "It's like waiting for a bus. If you wait long enough, one will eventually come along. But I remember the latest announcement before this one promised high-speed broadband by April 2015, so now that's not going to happen."

The Coyle family business, Mr Crumb, produces fresh breadcrumbs, cooked stuffing, flavoured butters, herb-crust topping and wraps, panini and burritos. Up to 70 per of its market is international – but the business premises in Finea, Co Westmeath, is in an internet blackspot.

“We have had satellite-based broadband with a private operator for the last 10 years or so, but it’s very slow. We are supposed to get a speed of 30 megabits per second, but usually it’s about 3-5Mbps to upload or download material,” Coyle says.

Up to 14 managers, of a staff of more than 120, need to communication online each day, but “it’s not unusual on a bad morning to have to leave the computer downloading material and head off to get a coffee. That’s a lost business cost.”

Mr Crumb supplies Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Tesco and Morrisons in the UK, Picard in France, ICA in Sweden and Albert Heijn in the Netherlands.

“Retailing is a busy sector. It’s when you get a 50- to 60-page document in at 3pm which has to be back by 5pm that you can hit a problem. Sometimes a staff member will have to go into an internet cafe in Mullingar, which is a 20-minute drive, if we are running behind schedule,” Coyle says.

“I’ve had letters from various Ministers promising broadband. This black spot encompasses the village of Finea, and there is a telecommunications exchange here, but nothing has been done to upgrade the online services” – and as far as Coyle knows there are no plans to. “We have been lobbying for years.”

This week Minster for Communications Alex White announced that in 2016 the Government will step in to provide broadband of at least 30Mbps wherever commercial providers have not provided the service, with the whole country covered by 2020. He likened it to the rural electrification scheme of the 1940s.

Coyle believes it’s right for the Government to subsidise high-speed broadband.“People say that urban dwellers don’t want to subsidise rural dwellers, but the trains are already subsidised, and there would be no electricity without subsidies.”

He is unhappy generally with the support for small rural businesses. “The Government pays lip service to growing rural businesses, but there is no policy to grow rural businesses. There should be a definite and direct policy for rural businesses which will take the pressure off housing and roads in other parts of the country.

“Seventy per cent of people are employed by the SME sector in Ireland. If our factory closed in the morning it would be the equivalent of 2,500 job losses in Dublin.”