ANDY HUDSON,
Madam, - Will no-one listen to Karlin Lillington (Net Results, Business This Week, January 17th). Almost since she started to contribute to your newspaper, she has raised the issue of the broadband future for Ireland, and for roughly the same time the response from Government and lily-livered "captains" of industry and commerce has been a deafening silence with an occasional obsequious whimper.
This is just too serious to ignore. It doesn't need a committee, it doesn't need palliatives, it doesn't need Government Departmental pass-the-parcel games and it certainly doesn't need a policy of laissez-faire: "Let's rely on market forces/the private sector to sort it out." What is needed now is vision, focus and action - before the end of the month.
Six months ago Ms Lillington warned that the 11th hour for such action was with us. It's probably 11:59 now and the last-chance saloon is running dry. It ought to be a matter of personal disgrace that the politicians of this country have allowed a burgeoning economy, driven by ideas, energy and a grasp of the requirements of the technology sector, to slip to third- world status in such a short time.
It is only a small step ,given a modicum of research and an attempt to understand, to put BROADBAND (and I use capital letters in the hope of the word being noticed) in the same category as electricity and other utilities.
Will it take the exit of a Microsoft or one of the other engines of the new economy to ram the message home? If so, it will be too late.
Broadband will ultimately mean jobs, tax revenues and sustainable growth. So, members of Dáil Éireann, captains of industry, get a grip. Even read the papers and please, please, listen to Karlin Lillington. - Yours, etc.,
ANDY HUDSON,
Managing Director,
Tech Arts Media,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.