The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment has said the Government acknowledges that there are issues to do with broadband penetration and take-up in Ireland.
However, Micheál Martin also said there has been dramatic progress on broadband rollout over the past two to three years and we are 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 including Communications Minister Eamon Ryan and Mr Martin.
In the letter, the eBay boss criticised Ireland's broadband infrastructure, describing it as being at developing world levels.
Mr McElligott said we continue to fall farther behind other leading countries and that poor broadband connectivity is costing the economy lost opportunities and growth.
Mr Martin said he is trying to secure a meeting with Mr McElligott, and is anxious to discuss policies of this kind.
The minister said it was acknowledged that broadband penetration here is not good enough and that we should be better than the European average.
But he said much of the current problems were due to failures by the private telecoms market to roll broadband out early on.
He said 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.
