Over £18 million (€23 million) in EU aid has been made available to telecommunications providers in the Republic. The funding is designed to ensure the delivery of high-speed broadband communications services to regional areas.

The structural funds will be matched by a total investment of £43 million (€55 million) from the successful applicants. They include Esat Telecom, Telecom Eireann, Ocean, Suir Nore Relays, Cablelink, CMI, and HEAnet.

Esat Telecom and Telecom Eireann each received funding for two separate projects, with Esat's allocation totalling £3.17 million (€4.03 million), and Telecom Eireann's amounting to £6.35 million (€8.0685) million. Ocean received the second highest allocation of £4.72 million (€6 million).

The announcement of the broadband funding was timed to coincide with the signing of the Government's agreement with telecommunications giant, Global Crossing, to provide an international high speed communications backbone here.

In order for the backbone to succeed, telecommunications providers need to invest in its bandwidth capacity. It is planned this round of EU funding will help stimulate such investment, and ensure its deployment in areas outside urban centres.

The projects are scheduled for completion by 2001, and will benefit the following areas: Athlone, Claremorris, Ballina, Sligo, Clonmel, Kilkenny, Tallaght, Castlebar, Donegal and 75 small urban centres between Sligo and Cork. In a separate announcement, £1.95 million (€2.5 million) from the European Regional Development Fund has been made available to small and medium enterprises to encourage the take-up of electronic commerce in the business process.

Amounting to 40 per cent grant support for projects, the fund will place particular emphasis on SME's in small population centres. Further details are to be released shortly by the Department of Public Enterprise.