Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman. Before I say anything I thank the committee for the huge amount of work it has put into the Citizens' Assembly and the report it recently published on climate action. I know it took a lot of work and I believe it is the most important issue facing our generation. I express appreciation for the work and I hope I will be able to do justice to it in our action plan, which is under development. This is the first time I have come to present Estimates and I thank the committee for its hearing.

The total Estimate is €665 million, €288 million of which is capital investment across all of the briefs. It covers communications, climate action and the environment. Specifically on communications, the huge challenge is to ensure people in Ireland can avail of the opportunities afforded by the enormous transformation that digital technology is having on our world. As members see in the Estimate, there are a number of areas where we make provision. One is on the capital side, where there is a tentative allocation of €75 million for the proposed State-led intervention and the national broadband plan intervention area. The committee is familiar with what has happened in this area since 2016. The number of people with high-speed broadband has increased from approximately 50% to 74% but there remains a figure of almost 25% for whom the commercial market will not deliver high-speed broadband to the standard set out in the specification made at the start of the process. I am at an advanced point in terms of due diligence being undertaken between my Department and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and I hope, as has been indicated by the Taoiseach, that I will be in a position to bring a recommendation to the Government very soon.

The second area to which I draw the attention of the committee is the money allocated to trading online vouchers and to providing digital skills for citizens. These are both important schemes in their own right, in that they help to ensure people have the opportunity to participate in the impact that digital technology can have on their business, in the case of the trading online voucher, or on their lives, in the case of citizens who have not had experience of using digital technology.

The other two points to which it may be worth drawing the attention of the committee is the work of the Digital Hub Development Agency and the National Digital Research Centre. The other significant area is the National Cyber Security Centre which, as Deputies probably know, has been significantly expanded in the past two years and is taking on new roles in terms of responding to incidents. It has found to be very effective in how it responds to incidents. It is going further under EU directives to have a role on essential services, whereby those services will have to report on a quarterly basis on the adequacy of their preparation to deal with cybersecurity. Consultation on a new cybersecurity strategy is under way, to be developed over the coming months. This deals with the top lines in communications.