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

I welcome the opportunity to address the Taoiseach on an important matter that has arisen in the Committee of Public Accounts, namely, the national broadband scheme and the failure of the national broadband plan and National Broadband Ireland, NBI, to meet the targets. We all understand there was a Covid-19 pandemic and part of the failure is down to that. We will not dispute that. There is an investment of €2.7 billion in the roll-out of the scheme, and there is no argument that it is badly needed in rural areas. However, there is no sign yet that we are achieving value for money. The target for the first year of the national broadband plan was 115,000 homes to be passed by the end of January 2022. National Broadband Ireland, the company tasked with delivering the roll-out, failed drastically to meet that target and passed just 27,000 homes and premises. Since then, we had the first remedial plan and then there was a second remedial plan, which set a target of 60,000 homes for January 2022. That failed, and the figure I have given shows it passed just under half that number.

This week, the Committee of Public Accounts received further correspondence from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications informing it that another updated, interim remedial plan had been agreed with a new target of 102,000 homes and premises to be passed by January 2023, which is still way below the original target that was set for the first year. The situation is becoming farcical. This is plan number three and we are not even reaching half of the target that was agreed. The committee also received correspondence from the Department which sets out some of the possible reasons. It refers to blocked ducting and Covid-19. The Taoiseach is aware that in the first part of 2021 communications was not one of the industries that were shut down. Communications continued going and, indeed, NBI was out on the road because its vans were knocking around and they seemed busy.

We understand there would have been some restrictions because of people being out due to being close contacts and so on. I raised concerns in the last Dáil and with previous Ministers with regard to the nature of the contract, the fact there was no competitive tendering and just one bidder, and the fact this involved a big risk for the State and the taxpayer. As I said, €2.7 billion of public money is being invested.

It is clear that targets are being missed. Will the Government apply sanctions if the targets are not met? I have had mixed messaging on that. I was told by Ministers before the contract was signed that there would be but the Minister informed me earlier in this Dáil, when it was sitting in the convention centre, that there were no penalties. Rural Ireland needs to plan and everybody is on the one page on that. However, there is a concern that time is slipping by and I am not totally convinced by the reasons being given, which are in regard to blocked ducting and other things. These are things we would expect. Covid does not account for 13 or 14 months of a delay and reaching less than half the targets that we should be reaching.