Macra na Feirme is calling for significant, long-term investment in rural broadband infrastructure by the new government. Rural communities are consistently experiencing speeds of less than 1Mbps during peak usage times, while their urban counterparts are capable of receiving 360Mbps in some areas. This 300-fold gap is having a negative effect on the life and economy of rural Ireland.

High-speed broadband is as essential as electricity for many businesses. Email, video calls and cloud storage are all used on a daily basis in some industries. IT/engineering businesses can require the download of large files regularly.

In some extreme cases, it is quicker to drive significant distances into urban centres to download these files, before returning home to use them.

Having to do this would prevent anyone from considering setting up many types of businesses in a rural community, hindering our rural economy.

The social life of rural Ireland is also affected by poor broadband infrastructure. The use of social media and video streaming is becoming more prevalent, both of which require high internet speeds. People working for companies that offer the chance to work from home are not able to do so in rural areas, again, due to poor broadband connections. This, along with a lack of investment in other rural infrastructure, is a contributing factor in rural-urban migration.

The most recent CEDRA report outlined the delivery of broadband speeds of at least 30Mbps to all rural areas by the end of 2015, while the current National Broadband Plan (NBP) only plans to start providing this speed in 2016. Not only have previous governments not acted on the recommendations of the CEDRA report, the NBP targets are not ambitious enough.

Average internet speeds are increasing exponentially. If the current global growth continues at the same rate, rural Ireland will again be left lagging behind our global counterparts within five years.