A Government spokesman has denied that the rural broadband scheme which began in 2000 is to be scrapped.
The spokesman for the Department of the Marine, Communications and Natural Resources told ireland.com: "The Group Broadband Scheme has not been so much scrapped as superceded."
Tommy Broughan, Labour Party communications spokesman said today the Government's ending of the scheme is "yet more evidence of the absolute failure of the Fianna Fáil/PD government to come to grips with the massive broadband deficit across Ireland."
The objective of the County and Group Broadband Schemes was to promote the rollout of broadband in rural ares, allowing communities to implement their own broadband plan.
Mr Broughan said the Government had pledged up to €435 million for the the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) programme in the National Development Plan despitereportedly having spent around €120 million on the scheme which had lost money and provided little real gain in broadband connection rates.
"Before this multi-million euro sum is spent," said Mr Broughan, "Minister Demspey must urgently review the performance and contribution of the MANs to closing the disastrous broadband deficit."
The spokesman said that at least €10 million will be available for the new, as yet unamed, scheme plus whatever budget was left over from the Group Broadband Scheme.
He also said that the NDP had an allocation to general broadband development and a portion of that allocation would be used for the new scheme.
"A new scheme will be created in the next few weeks which will aim to provide broadband access to those in isolated rural areas, approximately 10-15 per cent, who have no access at the moment," he added.
"Right now we are involved in an excercise to determine exactly where broadband is available and where it isn't."