Mr. Ciar?n ? h?b?in:

This issue is being brought to our attention regularly. Part of it is because people are aware that, under the national broadband plan, the level of connectivity is well in excess of what was flagged in the plan. The plan was based on a 30 Mb download target. This was the bar in the mapping exercise to determine what areas were covered by commercial operators. The minimum service now is 500 Mb. People sitting in the middle of Dublin city wondering whether they are 30 Mb are quite envious of this. There are two answers to this. The first is a difficult answer that takes quite a lot of time. We have spent a lot of time working with operators flagging issues and working through them. It may be down to their own network and work they have to do. Sometimes it is down to a piece of infrastructure that is needed and the operators might need to engage with local authorities on it.

I will give an overview of the broader picture of the three big providers of fixed networks outside the national broadband plan. Eir has said it will build its full fibre network to 1.9 million premises. Virgin Media has said it will reach 1 million premises. SIRO has said it will reach 750,000 premises. Obviously, there is overlap in these but they will deal with many of the problems. The problem is that fibre brings broadband to a cabinet from which people may be a long distance on a copper line. The build out will bring the fibre the whole way to the premises and it will resolve the vast majority of these issues.

Last week when the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, spoke on Second Stage of the Communications Regulation Bill, he made a very strong statement on the build of such infrastructure. There is an expectation that, as commercial operators roll out and design the deployments, they do not leave small pockets of premises behind and they do not leave households and businesses stranded. The critical point is users can connect. This is the core point we have seen in some of the instances mentioned by Deputy Devlin. The network is there but users cannot connect. The commercial operators really need to look at the deployments. It is the case in the national broadband plan that people will always be able to connect. This is the messaging we are getting back on the connections to date. The message the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, conveyed to the commercial operators is that they need to design their networks so they do not leave pockets behind and people are able to connect.