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

Okay. The word "community" in my political life is one I have found much misused. That is the word I will use. We will follow up on this issue. It is important we submit this complaint on the grounds as outlined.

We move on to R1716 B, from Mark Griffin, Secretary General, Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, dated 30 January 2023, which is a quarterly report requested by the committee regarding the national broadband plan, NBP. It is proposed to note and publish this correspondence. Is that agreed? Agreed. I have flagged this item because the original targets were that 115,000 premises were to have been reached by January 2022 and 204,000 by January 2023. We then had remedial targets. Sometimes we find we are being taken on a bit of a merry dance. The remedial targets were set at 60,000 for January 2022. This was because of Covid-19. National Broadband Ireland, NBI, only achieved 30,000 by that date. A second remedial target was then set because it was revised. This was to be 102,000 by January 2023 and NBI hit 85,000 by September 2022.

Regarding the connection rate, I am a bit puzzled by the reply. It is stated that 27,682 premises have been connected to the broadband network. It is mentioned that it is successful that this has happened. When I looked at the figures, this is just roughly 5% of the overall number of homes and businesses to be reached. At this point, in the context where we are putting just short of €3 billion into this project, having approximately 27,000 or 5% of the overall number of premises connected two years into this scheme would not seem to me to be a very positive picture. I propose we write back to Mr. Griffin and ask him to clarify the situation regarding the number of homes and businesses actually connected. I propose this because having roughly 27,000 premises connected now is, by any stretch of the imagination, very small. This is being held up as a success and we all want it to be successful. It is the number of homes and businesses that get connected to this broadband facility which will determine whether this project has been successful. I have great concerns about this project now. I propose, therefore, that we write back to express concerns to Mr. Griffin regarding the low number of premises connected. It is stated in this document that 25% of premises, or just over 100,000, have been passed and have the potential to connect to the network, which is exceeding expectations, and that this figure is increasing. If this is the expectation, we should write back to Mr. Griffin and point out to him that we feel that figure is very low. If other members wish to come in on this matter, they should feel free. I think, however, that having approximately 5% of premises connected, of the overall 500,000 premises to be passed in total, is a very low total two years into the project. Does anyone wish to comment?