The Government will invest €300 million building high-speed, broadband internet networks in 123 towns over the next five years.

The three-phase broadband programme will bring 50,000 km of fibre broadband internet networks to 19 towns by the end of next year, at a cost of €60 million. A second phase will see another €100 million to bring 48 further towns and a total of one million residents online, with the final 56 towns connected by 2005.

A team of senior industry experts - comprising Mr Chris Horn of Iona Technologies, Mr Kevin Dillon, Microsoft; Mr Martin Murphy, Hewlett Packard; Dr Alastair Glass, Science Foundation Ireland; and Mr Brendan Tuohy, secretary general for the Department of Public Enterprise - will supervise the broadband initiative,

It will create metropolitan fibre optic rings around the towns, 90 per cent funded by Government and 10 per cent by local authorities. The rings, and a national fibre optic network to which they will connect, will be run by a public private partnership.

"Regional broadband has become a rallying call," said the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, announcing the plan yesterday. She noted that critics had pointed to "a chasm, a deficit" in this area. She said the regions were the focus of the broadband initiative because Dublin was already served by a number of competing broadband networks.

However, the Government believed the introduction of the local rings, and the creation of a national, publicly-funded "local access" network, would drive down access costs and encourage the creation of new services nationally. "We believe that this is the future, and we're prepared to move in this direction and catalyse this," said Mr Tuohy.

The rings and national network would comprise 48 pairs of high-capacity, fibre optic cable, carried in a single duct - more than enough capacity to handle the voice calls and internet traffic of the entire state at present. The goal is to bring a five megabit, always-on fibreoptic connection to every home in the State by 2005.