Mr. Fergal Mulligan:

Regarding the European position on gigabit broadband, they have updated state aid guidelines. The ones we worked on previously, under our intervention, was the 2013 state aid guidelines. The guidelines were updated in 2021 and the minimum thresholds were significantly increased to a target of 1 gigabit for everybody. The Digital Decade target from Europe has set everything at a minimum speed of 1 gigabit by 2030 and the state aid guidelines reflect that by giving a mandate to member states to intervene where that speed will not be achieved. The 2013 threshold of 30 megabit no longer exists for new interventions but still applies to our state aid decision because it was based on the 2013 guidelines.

However, from an Ireland perspective it is no longer relevant because, for blue areas, we are being assured by all the commercial companies that all of those premises will get gigabit broadband, with Eir being the main company saying it will deliver gigabit broadband to all blue areas.