Irish households paying twice as much for broadband

Irish households are paying close to double the EU average for broadband access, according to a new report that shows Ireland is lagging behind its European counterparts when it comes to digital skills.

Ireland ranks 8th out of 28 Member States in the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index, which was published on Friday. This places Ireland in the ’medium-performance’ category, meaning it performs slightly above the EU average. Last year, Ireland was ranked in 11th place in the index.

Irish businesses ranked 2nd in the EU for use of social media and for e-commerce turnover. In addition, Irish SMEs rank 5th in the EU for selling online, and for use of e-invoices.

Online news, music, video and games, video calls, social networking, banking and shopping consumption all saw increases over the last year. Music, video and games, rose 20 percentage points from 23 per cent to 43 per cent. Video on demand services declined by 2 percentage points from 70 per cent to 68 per cent. However, VOD use is still very high in Ireland compared to the EU average of 41 per cent, placing Ireland 5th out of 28 countries.

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