Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with the broadband issue first because it was raised by a number of members.

At present, we are at stage 3, commencement of the detailed, technical and financial negotiations with the qualified bidders. There are three qualified bidders or consortia. The process started in July. We have a draft contract of approximately 2.2 million words - it is estimated that there will probably be 2.5 million words in it by the time it is finished - and we are in the process of dialogue with the three consortia on that. When the stage in question is completed, we will enter the formal tender process based on that contract. The objective is to have this completed by the middle of next year. I cannot be definitive on the timing because it is crucially important that the process be robust. It is important for me, as Minister, that we will have a contract at the end of this process that is as watertight as possible and that we will have been seen to go through this process fairly and transparently.

Others, including Senator O'Reilly, asked whether this money can be carried over. It is being carried over. Any money that is not spent is deferred rather than lost. However, money is not the issue here. It is about getting matters right, which is crucial. This is a 25-year contract so it does not just deal with current needs. This comes back to a point Deputy Stanley made. We are saying that the minimum service that must be provided is 30 Mbps download speed for 99.95% of the time. We believe that in order to ensure that this download speed will be achieved all of the time, the average speeds will have to be significantly higher.

The upload speed is 6 Mbps. We have stated from the outset that this speed is insufficient to meet the needs of businesses, particularly those with which I have been in contact. For the information of Deputy Stanley, it is not so much the download speed but that upload speed specification that is a problem for businesses because they also upload a great deal material and send and receive orders. As part of the dialogue phase of this process, we have asked each of the three consortia to come back with what they believe are the current needs based on their own expertise in dealing with businesses across the country. We accept that the requirement is significantly higher than those speeds and we also accept that this is a minimum standard.

As the committee will be aware, the commission made an announcement last week that it wants to see speeds go up to 100 Mbps and, over time, to 1 GB. We are satisfied that the contract we will sign will facilitate that as required over the 25-year period. As I stated previously in the House, this contract is designed in such a way that it is future-proofed so that if the need is for 100 Mbps in ten years' time, the contract will provide for that. Our difficulty up to now is that we have been catching up once we set the benchmark. When we started this process, 30 Mbps was seen as more than adequate. Indeed, I suppose it was considered generous. As the process goes on, the demands and needs of consumers change and that is why we are ensuring that this contract is future-proofed.

Deputy Lawless also mentioned the issue of fibre to the cabinet and the roll-out of the scheme. In the past four years, the telecommunications companies in this country have been spending, on average, €1.4 million every day on mobile broadband, wireless broadband and fixed-line broadband. That investment is ongoing but, to give an idea of the scale of the challenge in respect of mobile broadband, the recent ComReg report indicates that the data demand on the mobile phone network has increased by 60% in the past 12 months. The data demand on the mobile phone network across Europe is, on average, doubling every 18 months. The increase seems to be running probably slightly higher than that trajectory in recent years in Ireland. On the fixed-line network, it is doubling every 42 months across Europe. One can see that there is significant investment needed merely to keep going, never mind to jump ahead, in terms of investment.

Deputy Stanley made the point that the underspend means that this project is not a priority. That is not the case. It is the single biggest priority within our Department. We are determined to deliver on this project. As I said, funding is not an issue. In any approaches that we have made to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in respect of this matter, we have not found it wanting.

The Deputy stated that there will not be 100% access by 2022. That is not the case. Every home and premises will gain access to high-speed broadband. That roll-out will happen in every county. I do not know what document the Deputy has in front of him, but he asked about the differential between the amber and blue areas. The amber area is the intervention area under the national broadband plan. The blue areas are those where the private companies have come in and told our Department they will roll out high-speed broadband to every premises by the end of 2016. As a result, we left them out of the intervention area and we designated that blue on the website broadband.gov.ie. However, we quickly discovered that there were households which we were being told had already been provided with high-speed broadband but which were not able to access it. In June, we announced that we estimate, based on the figures available to us, there are 170,000 premises within the blue area that will not have high-speed broadband - which is a minimum of 30 Mbps - by the end of the year. We are revising our map to include those households. That is why I called all of the Members of both the Dáil and Seanad into the AV room before the summer recess to explain the position in respect of this project. I asked Members to make contact with their communities - even via local media - to check whether they are within the blue area. If Members constituents are not getting access to high-speed broadband or have not received a commitment from a broadband provider that they will have it by the end of this year, then we need to know about it. I plead with those present to make people aware of what is required and to ask them to log-on to broadband.gov.ieto see whether their properties are located in the blue area and whether they have access to high-speed broadband, or will have by the end of the year. If they do not have access, they should to e-mail us at www.dccae.gov.ie/communications/en-ie/Broadband/with their names, addresses and Eircodes in order that we can amend the map to ensure they are included on it.

I was asked about the timeline for the roll-out of the broadband. My Department is working closely with the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and her Department on the roll-out.

She is engaging with the local authorities to try to deal with potential bottlenecks. One of the most important things we need to do is appoint a sufficiently highly ranked individual in each authority to make things move, ensure there are no blockages and there is someone to engage with the successful contractor. The Minister for Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts and the Gaeltacht is also working with the local authorities and communities across the country, through local and regional task forces, to determine how the infrastructure might be physically rolled out in each county. Decisions must be made on whether village A, village B or community centres should benefit first within the restrictions imposed by the contractor. It is our intention, once we have everything nailed down in this regard, to publish on the website when every single premises in the country will have broadband. Thus, people will know that they will have it in the five-year roll-out period and the date on which they will have it. There may be a village in an isolated area such as the Black Valley that is not included in the first or second phase. In this regard, we must decide whether it is possible to enable a local community centre to give people access to a hot desk from which they can work or avail of services, pending full roll-out of the network?

I am as frustrated about this matter as everyone present. I come from the county that will require the greatest intervention under the national broadband plan. Sadly, my county has the worst broadband service in the country. I am sure Senator Michael McDowell can relate to this. I was as frustrated as everyone else when the Department announced earlier this year that there would be a delay. That is why I wrote into the programme for Government that we would establish a specific task force to examine the provision of mobile and wireless broadband as interim solutions and how best to help the businesses in question to deploy the technology far quicker. We committed in the programme for Government to establish the task force within the first 100 days. The Minister for Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts and the Gaeltacht and I established it within 82 days of the establishment of the Government. It has met on six occasions and will come forward with constructive, practical ideas to deal with the bottlenecks, one of which is in my constituency. In County Roscommon the development contribution for a mobile telephone antenna is zero. The contribution for a mobile telephone antenna across the River Suck in the other part of my constituency in County Galway is €20,000. This does not encourage companies to invest in mobile telecommunications infrastructure. There are, therefore, anomalies across the country in this regard.

Another problem is that Transport Infrastructure Ireland has a huge amount of ducting across the country along the national primary road networt but also along the motorway network. It is cheaper to dig up the road and lay new ducting than it is to gain access to the ducting already in the ground. There is something fundamentally wrong with the pricing structure in this regard. There is other public infrastructure that could and should be made available to facilitate the rolling out of existing technologies that would help to ease the pressure on communities in the short term. Tying in with this, last July we signed the broadband cost directive, which refers to access to infrastructure and sets clear deadlines as to when such a determination must be made on an application for a road opening licence and access to infrastructure. It must be made within a specified period after submission. The company eir, in particular, exerted a lot of pressure on me in this regard. It considered there was a significant bottleneck in rolling out its fibre network. I am sure it is the same for others.

Deputy Brian Stanley mentioned the mistakes made when we sold Telecom Éireann. There were mistakes made. The biggest problem at the time was that there was inadequate regulation to deal with the circumstances after the sale. If we were in the same circumstances again, I would not like to see the infrastructure sold. I have weighed up the pros and cons. My preference would have been to see the national broadband plan infrastructure remain in State ownership, but I had to make a call based on the information available to me and the competing demands, not only in my Department but across government, in meeting our climate change, energy efficiency, hospital waiting lists and housing programme targets. The only issue that will arise will not arise for the next 25 years. This is a problem we will have to examine in 26 years time. I agree that we need to get the regulation right in the interim, which is why we have already moved at European Council level to introduce a universal service obligation for broadband for people who do not yet have broadband such as those in an isolated premises and those who will not already have been provided with the service in 26 years.

It is important to remember that the universal service obligation in respect of fixed telephone lines does apply and has applied effectively to date. I have not received a great number of complaints about people not being able to avail of the service up to now. I do not know of any colleague who has received such complaints. I have not received correspondence within my Department about the matter either. The current regulation governing the fixed-line universal service obligation has worked to date. We will need a similar regulation in 26 years time for customers who will not have received a service before then.

Deputy James Lawless spoke about the National Ploughing Championships and the point he made is correct. The largest issue I came across at the championships was that of broadband. As I have always stated, there is massive potential in this regard. Last week we had a meeting with Science Foundation Ireland. Its director, Professor Mark Ferguson, was talking about e-farming and referred to a certain farmer who, when herding in the morning, sat down in front of a laptop. That is an operational note for Senator Tim Lombard. The farmer in question does everything on the laptop, including strip grazing and dealing with herd health issues. He does not dirty his shoes at all. There is considerable potential in that regard.

Senator Joe O'Reilly referred to the trading online voucher scheme. We need to do more to raise awareness. As the Senator knows, I contacted each member to encourage him or her to encourage local businesses and sole traders to participate in the trading online voucher scheme. We set ourselves a challenging target this year of trying to have 1,000 trading online vouchers taken up. It involves a 50:50 grant of up to a potential €5,000 for businesses with up to ten employees in order that they may set up a website and put in place a back-office payment system. They can then make purchases online. We carried out a survey of the businesses that had already signed up to the trading online scheme and noted that they had increased sales by 20%. They have increased the numbers in employment by one third and two thirds of the companies are now trading internationally. They include clothing shops, including men's outfitters on the main street in places such as Cashel, and also a bookshop in Abbey Street in Roscommon. Companies across the country are participting in the scheme and there is also an individual who, as a hobby, is making pottery and selling it as wedding presents internationally, mainly to the United States. There is considerable potential. I encourage people who are not now trading online to contact their local enterprise office. Grants and vouchers are available. I have also engaged in a series of information meetings. I am due to travel to the constituency of Deputy Hildegarde Naughton and the Minister of State at the Department of Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Seán Kyne, on Friday. There is to be an initiative with Facebook on Monday week and we are involved with another for seven local enterprise offices in Roscommon. We are trying to encourage and promote the scheme as much as possible.