Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

In December 2022, my Department published Ireland's Digital Connectivity Strategy which supports the ambition outlined in the National Digital Strategy and sets out a number of ambitious targets, including that:

• all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028
• all populated areas will be covered by 5G no later than 2030, and
• digital connectivity will be delivered to all schools and broadband connection points by 2023

NBI reports that all 955 Strategic Connection Points (SCPs) sites have been installed before the end of 2023, of which 283 are publicly accessible Broadband Connection Point sites now connected with high-speed broadband service through a service provider contract with Vodafone. The remaining 672 installed SCPs are part of the SCP Schools Programme.

The remaining targets will be achieved through commercial operators investing in their networks, complemented by the State’s National Broadband Plan intervention. When taken together, all premises in the State will have access to high-speed broadband in every part of the country no matter how remote.

The Question refers to a premises located in the AMBER area on the National Broadband Plan (NBP) High Speed Broadband Map which is available on my Department's website www.broadband.gov.ie. The AMBER area is to be served by the network deployed under the NBP State led intervention.

The latest information on when high-speed broadband will become available to this premises can be found on National Broadband Ireland’s (NBI) website at nbi.ie/map/ . This website is regularly updated providing the expected timeline for delivery and status of any works that are initiated at any point in time. NBI also has a dedicated email address, reps@nbi.ie, which can be used by Oireachtas members for specific queries.

NBI have advised that the premises in question is now ready to connect and an order can be placed through one of the local providers in the area, a list of which can be found on National Broadband Ireland’s (NBI) website at nbi.ie/map/.

Commercial operators’ fibre rollouts are progressing at pace. Open eir have already passed over 1.1 million homes. SIRO has recently reached a milestone of enabling over 560,000 premises for full fibre and is on track to reach 700,000 premises by 2026. Virgin Media’s ongoing €200m network upgrade to full fibre is continuing to 2025 and will support speeds up to 10Gbps. Virgin Media Ireland has already upgraded over 250,000 premises to fibre across the Virgin network.

Recent ComReg data shows that Quarter 4 of 2023, saw a 7.51% increase in fibre broadband subscriptions compared to Quarter 3, 2023, and a 33.33% increase when compared to Quarter 4 of 2022. This demonstrates that the take-up of fibre connectivity for homes and businesses is increasing greatly as the services are deployed to areas where they had previously been unavailable. The same ComReg data also indicates that c. 40% of homes and business throughout the State now have access to gigabit services through either fibre (667,771) or cable (348,251) infrastructure.