(Telecompaper) The Irish government will spend EUR 172 million next year to support programmes in communications, energy, broadcasting and natural resources, announced communications minister Alex White in a statement on the 2015 Budget. The government sees as a top priority the provision of at least 30 Mbps to every citizen, business and community, which will mean supporting an infrastructure rollout to up to 7000,000 premises beyond the at least 1.6 million premises expected to be reached by the commercial sector by the middle of 2016. The department will provide detailed maps over the coming weeks showing the areas where commercial providers are in place or plan networks and those where state intervention is required. The budget also allocates a further EUR 3 million to the Trading Online Programme aimed at getting at least 2,000 small businesses trading online. The Irish government also announced that it would abolish the 'Double Irish' tax loophole for all new companies from the start of next year, giving existing companies a transition period until the end of 2020. The loophole allows foreign companies to move most of their tax income from an operating subsidiary in Ireland to an Irish-registered division in an offshore tax haven. All new companies registered in Ireland will have to be resident for tax purposes. In September, the European Commission provisionally found that Apple's tax arrangements in Ireland amounted to state aid.