Rural broadband funding welcomed

Sinn Féin MLA Megan Fearon has welcomed the announcement from DARD Minister, Michelle O’Neill, that another £5 million will be spent in order to connect more rural areas to the internet.

Speaking to Newry Times, Fearon said, “I welcome the fact that the Minister is living up to her pledge to connect rural areas to the Internet. Today the internet plays a major role in peoples’ lives, whether it is educational, recreational or for business use, and all areas should have the ability to connect to it.

“It is also crucial in attracting inward investment into rural areas that they have a modern high speed connection for businesses to use.

“Many rural areas do not have connectivity or unacceptably slow internet speeds so the announcement yesterday of another £5m investment will be welcome news for those areas.

“This brings the total investment to over £7.5m from the Department of Agriculture to ensure that everyone, whether rural or urban, can have access to the latest internet provision.

Fearon added, “I have requested a meeting with the Minister to ensure that the black spots in the South Armagh area are included in this spending announcement.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on May 13 2013. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry