Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will raise a couple of points around No. 689B. I was surprised to learn recently, when I raised this matter with the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ossian Smyth, that only 4,000 connections have been done so far this year. That would show we are barely chipping away at it and taking a small chip out of what needs to be done. We know from replies to parliamentary questions that the contract had a target of 115,000 connections in 2021, so 4,000 so far is not what you would call good progress. You could say that Covid-19 could hold up communications works. Communication workers were out on the ground. It is one of the areas that was not held up by Covid-19. I note from the correspondence that there will be a remedial plan. We need to see that plan.

In my interaction with the Minister of State, which was only a couple of weeks ago, he confirmed to me, which came as a surprise, that no penalties are included in the contract despite me, when I was spokesperson on this matter, and indeed other people in the House being assured there were going to be stringent penalties. We have now been told that only 4,000 have been connected up to a couple of weeks ago and that the target falls a long way short of the 115,000 connections to premises and households in 2021. For members' attention, I have a transcript of the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth's, reply to me in the Dáil:

The Deputy asked whether there were penalty clauses. As I understand it, there are none in the current contract.

The Deputy also asked about the Minister's representative on NBI. I might defer to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, if he has an answer.

The point I am making is we have only one representative on the board. My real areas of concern from the point of view of public money are that only 4,000 connections were done at that stage, according to the Minister of State, and he was not aware of any penalties.

I ask that we correspond with the Secretary General of the Department to express our concern about this reply from the Minister of State in the Dáil and ask the Department to confirm the current position. We should ask it to clarify exactly what the current position is regarding the number of connections but also whether we are in a situation where there is no penalty in terms of missed targets for the broadband contract. If the contractors do not meet the targets, then so be it. There are no penalties for them. I was assured, as were other Deputies in the Dáil Chamber on a number of occasions, as far as I can recall, including by the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment in the previous Government, Deputy Bruton, that there would be penalties. We could ask for that to be clarified.

It is worth mentioning that, in his reply, the Minister of State said the number of homes that have been passed and are ready for connection to broadband is 4,000. That means there is a cable going past outside on the road. It does not actually mean that they are even fully connected up. Is the committee agreed we should write to the Secretary General of that Department asking for clarification on those two matters? Agreed.