The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin, has acknowledged that there are issues with broadband penetration and take-up in Ireland.
However, the minister insisted that there has been dramatic progress on broadband roll out over the past two to three years and said Ireland is catching up with the European average.
Mr Martin was reacting to a letter sent by the Managing Director of eBay in Ireland, John McElligott, to politicians about broadband issues.
In the letter, Mr McElligott criticised Ireland's broadband infrastructure, saying it was at developing world levels.
Mr McElligott said Ireland continues to fall farther behind other leading countries and said poor broadband connectivity is costing the economy lost opportunities and growth.
Mr Martin is trying to secure a meeting with Mr McElligott and is anxious to discuss policies of this kind.
He said much of the current problems were due to failures by the private telecoms market to roll broadband out early on.
Mr Martin stated there was no argument over the need to do better, but progress in recent years has been dramatic, and if that could be kept going, then the concerns could be dealt with.
He said his ministerial colleague, Eamon Ryan, has a clear policy agenda and is working on implementing it.
