Broadband technology is the great hope of rural areas, allowing people from places such as the Outer Hebrides and Cahirciveen to access centres of power, a conference in Killarney was told yesterday.
Advanced telecommunications for video conferencing, Internet and e-mail were the most important factors if regions in Ireland and across Europe were not to be socially excluded, the conference heard.
The event was hosted by the European Committee of the Regions and the South West Regional Authority.
Unfortunately, the reality was that companies were physically moving out of the regions because of lack of access to high-speed technology, delegates were told.
The Minister for Communications, Mr Ahern, told 300 delegates from Spain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, the UK, and Norway that demand for advanced telecommunications had far outstripped supply.
"There is, quite simply, a market failure. The supply side is not meeting the demand. There is no meaningful competition," he said. The price of high-speed broadband was still way too high, and it was cheaper to get from Dublin to New York (via high speed transatlantic cable) than from Dublin to Mayo, he added.
The chief executive of the South West Regional Authority, Mr John McAleer, said companies were physically moving out of so-called peripheral areas "to chase bandwidth". And this was happening across Europe.