Mayo and the politics of connection

ACHILL Island is set for its rural electrification moment, or so declared Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan, a Fine Gael man who landed on Ireland’s largest island to mark its connection to high-speed broadband under the National Broadband Plan.

It was a rare good news day on a grey and misty morning in Keel, and God knows good news is in short supply.

The local community pulled out all the stops for the visiting minister.

A Limerick native, O’Donovan made sure to burnish his rural credentials, celebrating both the dawn of a modern age and what he framed as a successful infrastructural legacy delivered by his party, Fine Gael, against all of the odds and typical nay-sayers.

“The intelligentsia didn’t want money spent on bringing electricity back then. What was this young free-state government doing?

“They wrote about it being far too costly,” he said, before launching into a familiar urban versus rural narrative.

The “mostly Dublin-based intelligentsia,” he told the room, also opposed the damming of the Shannon and the construction of Ardnacrusha, just as they questioned the investment in the national broadband roll-out.

His speech stopped just short of Father Ted’s 'golden cleric' territory.

The minister welcomed the service providers and Wi-Fi companies, who were all present at the event, but reminded them that, “they wouldn’t bring the connection to as many homes unless it was for the government.”

What was most surprising was the Boston-born NBI chairman extolling the virtues of Ireland. Indeed it wasn’t unique hearing an American brogue on Achill Island telling us all what a great country this is, but the fact he said that Ireland is a country able to bring forward huge infrastructure projects was remarkable.

David McCourt is a man of pedigree and with decades of experience in the telecommunications industry.

He clarified and admitted that when you live in Ireland it doesn’t appear to be that way, particularly with issues surrounding the National Children’s Hospital and MetroLink, but he informed us that many across Europe in the field of telecommunications are amazed by the national broadband roll-out with its ambition, bravery, success and sheer scale.

Prior to his railing against the elites on Achill Island, Patrick O’Donovan has admittedly been handed an eclectic brief.

As Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport he oversees a haberdashery from the Arts Council IT fiasco, the never-ending RTÉ drama and recently a perceived solo-run by the Newcastle West TD to commit €10 million for an NFL game in Dublin later this year.

It’s a varied position that on his visit west saw him travel from Achill Island to the National Museum in Turlough and later over to the TG4 studios.

Presently, he is regularly touted as a future potential leader of Fine Gael, if and when the time arises.

Still, it will be tough for him to garner huge swathes of support, but he has a steely determination and in Achill spoke about a misspent youth listening to Haughey and Fitzgerald debate ideas on how to keep rural people in their homeland, even quoting De Valera and saying how now we no longer have to “export our youth like cattle”.

There is a rose-tinted view of rural Ireland post-Covid. The pandemic that blessed the world with the silver lining of remote working.

NBI, too, helps to support this and has accelerated since life returned to normal.

But still, what good is a hybrid role, with two to three days in the office in Dublin or Galway if you want to put down roots back home in Achill?

It’s unfeasible, unlikely and ignorant to champion this without legislation and support for workers to work entirely remotely, without having to rely on Irish public transportation, and traffic congestion, all to prop up the Dublin commercial property market.

Minister O’Donovan spoke about how now young people can stay in their local communities, work for a company in Sydney or Tennessee and train the local GAA club, play for it, and have your kids go to the local national school now, all thanks to the internet.

“The people of rural Ireland pay their taxes like everyone else, they deserve this as much as those in Dublin do,” he said.

But the reality in rural areas is different.

There are still many areas in Mayo without NBI roll-out.

A lot of work has been done, but for the minister keen on quoting former Fianna Fáil Taoisigh, there’s a lot more to do.

Recent WRC rulings have not found in favour of workers and when you factor in the cost of childcare, exorbitant house prices in Dublin and the apparent unanimous desire to see more regional balance, government must put plans in place to support workers to continue in employment along with the option of a lower cost of living in rural areas.

All of the ingredients are there for this panacea moment.

It would be another dig in the ribs to the intelligentsia of leafy suburban Dublin.

The rhetoric used by the minister, if it was by a member of any other party, would have Fine Gael members labelling it populist.