Information technology has been one of the key drivers of Ireland's rapid economic expansion with US multi-nationals such as Microsoft, Intel and Dell providing much of the impetus for that growth.
In a globalised world, Ireland - like other developed states - is moving from being a post-industrial economy based on manufacturing goods to becoming a knowledge economy, reliant on the abilities of a highly educated workforce to provide services for export.
To complete this transition successfully, however, requires greater public knowledge and more intensive use of communications technology. Regrettably, the latest European Commission survey on communications produces a disappointing report on Ireland's performance in this area. Among 27 EU member states, Ireland remains more a laggard than a leader. Progress has been made but other countries have advanced more rapidly and are outpacing us in some respects.
In 2007 more than half of Irish homes (58 per cent) had a computer which marks an improvement on a year earlier. But computer penetration in Ireland, while in line with the EU average, trails well behind countries like the Netherlands. There, computer ownership among households is almost universal. Likewise, while 49 per cent of homes here have an internet connection, which puts Ireland on a par with most other EU countries, we rely excessively on narrowband technology, or dial-up access, to make the connection. That means internet access but at a very slow speed. Ireland is now the only EU state where more households access the internet using a narrowband rather than a broadband connection. In addition, broadband speeds are far slower in Ireland than in most European countries while usage costs here are exorbitantly higher.
Broadband is seen as an essential part of a developed economy's communications infrastructure and one of the ways that a country like Ireland can offset its peripheral location and minimise its relative isolation from world markets. The inadequacies of our existing broadband service, its high cost, low speed, and its limited availability in less populated areas amount to a self-imposed handicap that has been too long tolerated. For the economy it has become a serious competitive weakness which Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan is about to seek to address with a new next-generation broadband strategy. To date, however, successive governments have been slow to recognise the existing shortcomings and even slower to rectify them.