Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Deputy O'Rourke and I and Deputy Ó Murchú have worked together through ups and downs on this project over the past number of years. Deputy O'Rourke will remember that during the pandemic there were delays to the project. It eventually looked as though it would be eight months delayed compared with its original schedule. The project was signed in December 2019 and the contract activation date was the end of January 2020. It is a seven-year project. As we know, seven years from the end of January 2020 is the end of January 2027. That was the original schedule for the project but it was eight months late because of Covid. It looked like it was heading towards September 2027 but, since then, the project has begun to accelerate and get back on track and the time has been made up. At this stage, NBI expects to complete the project by the end of 2026. In other words, it will be completed earlier than the original schedule and will have made up the time that was lost during Covid. That is a positive. More than half of the homes in the country were passed earlier this year. We have passed more homes than we were on schedule for in the original contract and connected more homes then we were on schedule for in the contract, which is the reason we are here today. We are ahead of where we expected to be on our schedule and, therefore, need to draw down some of the money this year rather than next. We need an additional sum of money. We are looking for an extra €30 million to connect those additional people. It is good news.

The Deputy’s second question relates to a non-intervention area, in this case an urban area where the commercial providers have found it is not worth their while to connect. It is not profitable for them to connect a particular home, street or estate. This often relates to estates where it was decided not to put in lamp posts or overhead wires and where cables, typically installed in the 1980s, were buried in the soil directly. Those estates will need to be dug up and ducting put in to connect to each of the individual homes. From the point of view of the three fibre commercial providers that are operating in the market, namely, SIRO, Eir and Virgin, it is not profitable to connect these people. From the Government's point of view, however we have to connect everybody in the country and provide them with gigabit Internet. In the rural area we have a contract to make sure there is 100% coverage but in the urban area we need to find a solution for blackspots. I have worked on that with ComReg, which is producing mapping data that I hope to show to the public shortly, showing which areas do not have any particular fibre provider. We have worked on a number of possible solutions for how to make sure that everybody gets connected. We have looked at how this has been approached in other European countries and considered various solutions, having to take into account whether we could do it in a way that is compatible with state aid rules and make sure it is not discriminating against one or other of the providers and that it is done in a fair way. We have the experience; we have been through this with the national broadband plan when we made sure it was state aid compatible. In the urban areas, the problem is much smaller than it is in rural areas. We are probably talking about approximately 150,000 homes, whereas the national broadband plan is currently 564,000 homes, so it is only a quarter of the number of homes, approximately. The amount of money needed to get those homes connected is much less per premises. I am working with my Department, which will work on various pilot projects. I am also working with the communications regulator to find a solution to that. I will keep the Deputy updated.