Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe as ucht teacht isteach inniu. D'éist mé go cúramach lena raibh le rá acu. Mar is eol dóibh, tá sé thar a bheith tábhachtach go mbeidh leathanbhanda ar fáil ag gach uile dhuine. The first thing I notice here is the highly unambitious EU target of 30 Mbps for which we were working for a long time.

The present committee Chairman received a fair chinwag for this over the years from me where I said it was utter nonsense and that whatever Europe was saying, we should have been going for fibre. I am delighted that in general, this is what we are going for.

I have a series of questions, which I will go through together rapidly. First, will the build-out happen within five years from the time of the signing of the contract or will it be seven years? We were promised that this work would be done within time. Second, is there a penalty on NBI for failure to reach targets, which it is doing at the moment? Is that in the contract? Third, when will we get accurate forecasts of how many premises will be passed at the end of each year from 2021 to 2025, inclusive? People want to know and to know accurately by Eircode postcode also.

Mr. Ó hÓbáin mentioned the islands. As far as I am concerned, it is very bad news for anywhere a broadband connection point, BCP, has gone in, because it is a clear indication that it is way down the list. Boasting that there are BCPs on islands is a worrying feature for somebody like me, because I know what the demand on the ground is. There is nobody in rural Ireland that wants anything less than fibre-to the-home, FTTH, or in other words, parity.

As an aside, one curious thing I noticed was that if one looked for broadband in certain Eircode postcodes on the mainland in Connemara, one will be told that it will be in 2025, 2026 or whenever but that there is a BCP nearby out on Inishbofin. Whoever organised that had a sense of humour, in that every time one wanted to connect to broadband one would have to travel to the island.

Specifically, on the island issue, can the witnesses tell us whether fibre cable will be rolled out to the islands? If so, has there been consultation with the Department with responsibility for the islands and with, for example, ESB Networks and the local authorities to see whether, when the dredging for the cable goes in, other utilities such as water in certain cases or improved power generation, particularly in view of renewable energy, can be put in at the same time rather than having three boats coming at three different times to provide three different types of delivery? It is very important that this issue would be dealt with.

We have been told there has been a 54% increase in FTTH pick-up. Can the witnesses tell us what percentage of people who have FTTH passing the house have actually got FTTH now? As far as I am concerned, in most cases the constraint in getting FTTH or fibre to the home or to business is its unavailability outside one’s front door. I am curious to know what percentage of houses that are passed have now taken up the option of FTTH? Can I ask that it be broken down between urban and rural?

On the cost, it is very likely that in the next five or six years, 80% to 90% of houses will take the very good quality broadband, in the way they used to have a phone in the old days. I understand there is a clause in the contract that states the more people that pick it up, the cheaper the broadband is going to cost the State. What is the current estimate, based on the present and growing demand for FTTH, for the expected cost of the actual roll-out of this NBI project if there is a very high take-up in line with what we seem to be getting on the ground at the moment? For example, have the witnesses any projections that if we had 80% of premises passed taking it, or 70%, or so on, as to what the actual costs will be and which, if my understanding is right, will prove this to be probably the most effective value investment ever undertaken by the State? This will also prove that those Jonahs who believed that nobody in rural Ireland would take up these connections did not know anything about rural Ireland.