Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The logic of what we are hearing now is for the national broadband plan for rural areas, not the whole State. The rural area cover started off as 850,000. Eir has already done 300,000 from that total and we are now down at 540,000. The Department has looked at that. Eir has confirmed that it is now going to upgrade its existing network from copper to fibre and that it is going to take another 80,000 of the 540,000. This means the number will have dropped to 460,000. Eir has confirmed that commercially. It will be done without a penny of State aid or taxpayers' money. Imagine has stated that it can do a large chunk of the 460,000 remaining premises, although I am not tying anyone to a figure.