Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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As Deputy Donnelly knows, I cannot comment on stuff that is before the courts. There are probably questions over whether it should be discussed here but I will come back to that in a minute.

I can inform Senator Lombard that in the commitment agreement it signed with me, Eir gave a commitment to deliver broadband to approximately 179,000 premises before the end of this year. It has said in the correspondence that is in the possession of the joint committee that it will fulfil that commitment agreement and will deliver on the 300,000 homes and premises by the end of the year.

The Senator also asked about the roadblocks that are ahead. I have been trying to pre-empt many of these roadblocks through the mobile phone and broadband task force. Many of the roadblocks will arise during the physical roll-out of the infrastructure. We have done a great deal. We have appointed a broadband officer in each local authority. We are currently considering whether to ramp that up to a broadband office in each local authority. We have streamlined the licensing process. We have a uniform standard for road reopening and reinstatement. We have completed ducting across the country on the Transport Infrastructure Ireland national road network. I do not know whether there will be other roadblocks. I hope not. I am very engaged with the industry. We are trying to deal with these issues in a proactive manner.

Deputy Lawless, who has proposed legislation in this area, also raised a number of issues. I am quite happy to try to facilitate any proposals that deal with the roadblocks as we draw up the infrastructure access legislation and bring it through the House.

I was asked whether EU approval is needed. Approval is required from the perspective of State aid. We have been very engaged with the European Commission throughout this process. As I said in my opening remarks, the Commission believes the commitment agreement we have with Eir could and should be replicated by other member states. The Commission is quite impressed by the standard we have achieved in this respect. Maybe I will ask my officials to come back to the committee on this in further detail because they deal with the Commission on a regular basis. The reason for the detailed level of engagement with the Commission is to ensure this can quickly go through the formal process of State aid approval. Our objective is to get moving on it quite quickly.

Deputy Donnelly raised the issue of cost versus service in the context of weak regulation. It is absolutely the case that cost versus service is an issue. The Deputy is aware that these issues are regulated. I am quite happy to look at any recommendations that will come from the committee regarding regulation in this area. I think there is legislation coming forward on ComReg and on regulation in general. We are quite happy to look at any constructive suggestions that may be made in this regard. As I said earlier, I advise and encourage the committee to invite representatives of ComReg to come before it so that these questions can be put to them.

Deputy Donnelly spoke about the blue, amber and light blue areas. As he knows, I have encouraged colleagues formally, informally and on the floor of the House to raise anomalies within the blue area. I emailed the offices of all Deputies to ask them to highlight anomalies within the blue area. A number of colleagues did so and I thank them for their input. The individual who is responsible for the map is Mr. Pat Neary, who is sitting beside me. Maybe he can go into further detail when he gets an opportunity to do so in a few minutes. We have changed from dark blue to amber any area or house that was not getting or would not get a minimum of 30 Mbps. As I said earlier, our intention is to bring high-speed broadband to every home and business in Ireland, both urban and rural. The gaps will have to be addressed. We have made provision within the contract to allow for that. We also believe the universal service obligation will deal with many of these areas.

Deputy Donnelly suggested that the light blue area has been compiled on a house by house basis. I can inform him that it has been done on an postcode by postcode basis. I refused to sign the commitment agreement until I got a list of postcodes across the country to which Eir was committing to provide high-speed broadband. I did not want to say we were going to do 300,000 because people would have wanted to know whether we were going to do 150,000 in Laois while other places were left high and dry. We have a list that has been compiled on the basis of postcodes. Just over 300,000 postcodes were presented to us.

It will not be the case that people will have to pay for the data over that fibre. It will be part of the whole procurement process. I will ask the officials who are with me to deal with that in a few minutes.