Firm told two years’ wait to get broadband

A WEST Cork company with a turnover of more than €200m is getting the run-around in relation to broadband connectivity.

County mayor Cllr Danny Collins (Ind) made that claim at a recent meeting of the Council’s Western Divisional Committee.

Cllr Collins claimed ‘people are passing the buck’ in dealing with the company’s request to connect to a substation, just 250m from their place of business.

The mayor said it was ridiculous that a company, which employs 50 full-time and 20 part-time staff, cannot secure the high-speed connection.

Cllr Collins said a representative of the company told him that there is ducting passing their door but the cable is not.

Ted O’Leary, a senior executive officer with Cork County Council’s environment and emergency services directorate, who was deputising for the director of service, said he would refer the matter back to the local authority’s broadband officer.

Mr O’Leary surmised that it may be a case of a retail operator providing the service from the cable to the business.

Meanwhile, a representative of Lisavaird Co-op told The Southern Star that the company contacted National Broadband Ireland (NBI) and registered the co-op’s interest in getting connected to the fibre network.

‘A representative of NBI surveyed the site and said it would be two years before we would be connected,’ said the spokesperson. ‘When we asked why it would take so long, we didn’t get a clear answer to that question.

‘Since then,’ the spokesperson said, ‘we have spoken to Vodafone and Eir and they said they don’t have connections they can give us. But we are aware that there is an Eir distribution box 250m away. We have now registered with Eir and are awaiting a response.’