The Labour Party has called for laptops for all secondary school pupils and greater powers for the Communications Regulator to facilitate greater broadband penetration in Ireland.
The measures are among ten suggestions contained in " Enabling Ireland's Future", a discussion document on broadband published today.
The 22,000 word document - prepared by the party's spokesman on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Tommy Broughan - blames the slow broadband rollout in Ireland on a lack of political leadership and a coherent national strategy to promote broadband development.
Providing laptops for secondary school pupils would enable the relevant knowledge and skills to be learned in the classroom and facilitate a greater awareness of broadband, according to the document.
It also calls for the Communications Regulator to be given the ability to impose much greater financial penalties on telecom operators, and for an agreement to be reached with Eircom to loosen the company's stranglehold on the local loop.
The paper points out that Ireland has consistently ranked near the bottom of any international league table of broadband development. The last international benchmarking of broadband end user figures released by the OECD ranks Ireland in 24th place out of 30 states.
Among the measures proposed are a dedicated government department dealing with communications and broadcasting, a broadband task force to concentrate resources and responsibility in a central location for intensified rollout, and a national information technology education programme.