Mr. Peter Hendrick:

I thank the committee for having us. I am joined by my colleagues, Mr. Malone and Ms Collins. I thank the committee for the invitation to speak with its members today. We are only too pleased to discuss the latest update on our overall progress with the NBP, as well as to provide a more detailed view of some specific areas that the committee members may be interested in, such as progress in relation to offshore islands.

The timing of our appearance comes on the back of a major milestone for NBI and the roll-out of the NBP. I am pleased to report that as of today, broadband connections on the NBI network will be available to over 201,000 homes, farms and businesses across the country. This milestone means that over one third of the premises targeted by the NBP now have access to our high-speed fibre broadband network. Crucially, this will see the network build surpass our targets for this current year. Further, and as noted recently by the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, the NBP has seen a much higher take-up rate than had been originally forecast. With over 60,000 connections live on the network, we are now ahead of the connection targets that would have applied even had there been no Covid-19-related impact to the roll-out. Some 65 broadband providers are contracted to sell services on NBI's wholesale network and the levels of take-up that we are driving not only surpass the targets for this project but also exceed other international comparisons.

As a reminder for the committee, there are currently over 564,000 premises in scope across the Twenty-six Counties and NBI is providing world-class high-speed fibre broadband infrastructure, with minimum speeds of 500 Mbps. In addition, we are already delivering services of 2 Gbps.

The roll-out of the NBP is almost unrivalled in its ambition and complexity, and we are extremely proud of the progress that is being made across every aspect of the roll-out, which I can summarise as follows. Over 77% of premises, numbering 437,000, have now completed the survey and design stages of the programme. Three in five premises, numbering approximately 353,000, have moved to or through construction, with over 38% of all premises, numbering approximately 215,000, now in the build complete category. The number of premises passed by our network and ready to connect is over 201,000, which means the target of 185,000 premises to be passed by the end of the current contract year in January 2024 has already been surpassed. As I have mentioned, over 60,000 premises are now connected, which is significantly above forecasts that envisaged 50,000 connections by the end of the current contract year in January 2024. Take-up rates are above 40% in areas where the network has been live for longer than 12 months and the average take-up rate of 30% is well ahead of projections and international comparisons.

I will now turn my attention to some specific areas that I think the committee may be interested in with respect to the islands, BCPs and rural schools. At NBI, we are working to the mandate from Government to ensure that no town, village or community will be left behind under the NBP. No premises is too rural or too remote.

This means delivering broadband infrastructure to the islands is a natural extension of this mandate. In all, 27 offshore islands included in the intervention area are recognised as stand-alone deployment areas and it is our ambition all islands within our scope will be connected by the end of the programme. Ten of these islands are live and we are actively working on a number of other islands to deliver our new high-speed broadband network.

Given their remote location, unique topology and obvious logistical challenges, the islands undoubtedly present additional complexity and have been poorly served with utilities historically. We are determined, however, to ensure access to high-speed broadband for these locations. NBI’s strong progress on the islands has been made possible with the tremendous support of several stakeholders, namely, the local authorities, the Departments of the Environment, Climate and Communications and Rural and Community Development, the Irish Islands Federation and, most of all, the island residents.

Turning to the broadband connection points, BCPs, and schools, taken together, we are building a network of more than 950 strategically located connection points, or hubs, for community use. BCPs are public locations that have been chosen to receive high-speed connectivity as part of the NBP. These locations have been selected by local authorities and include public areas such as community halls, libraries, sports facilities, enterprise hubs, tourist locations and other public spaces. Some 283 BCPs have been installed with high-speed connectivity by NBI. These sites are the beating hearts of rural communities and have been a critical part of providing accessible, high-speed broadband for rural residents ahead of fibre connections being made available directly to every premises in the intervention area. In respect of schools, NBI is working with the Departments of Education and the Environment, Climate and Communications to connect 672 primary schools to the high-speed broadband network under the NBP. To date, 669 of these schools have been installed by NBI, with the remaining three schools to be connected this month.

Before I hand back to committee members and invite questions, I would like to conclude with some recent analysis that helps place Ireland’s NBP in the context of other projects throughout Europe. In September, the European Commission launched its inaugural report on the state of the digital decade, which provides the most comprehensive review of the EU’s progress towards a successful digital transformation, as set out in the Digital Decade policy programme 2030. Importantly, the report specifically noted Ireland is "expected to make a positive contribution to the collective efforts to achieve the EU’s Digital Decade targets" and, in its summary of Ireland’s performance, called out that “Ireland is progressing well with the implementation of the National broadband plan (NBP) and the connection of primary schools to broadband networks.” It is our view the report rightly highlights Ireland’s leadership position in Europe, and at NBI we are proud to play a key role in expanding the roll-out of future-proofed, high-speed broadband to every premises in the country to ensure equal access and equal opportunities.

I thank the committee for its time. Mr. Malone, Ms Collins and I will be pleased to answer any questions.