Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in both the coverage of mobile telephone and broadband services across Ireland, with a multiplicity of commercial operators providing services over a diverse range of technology platforms.

ComReg advises that voice coverage is at 99% of the country. The Government has also undertaken a number of initiatives to bring broadband to those parts of the country where commercial operators have been unable to offer services. The combination of private investment and State interventions such as the national broadband scheme means that Ireland has met the European Commission's digital agenda for Europe target of having a basic broadband service available to all areas by 2013.

The Government's national broadband plan, which I published in August 2012, aims to radically change the broadband landscape in Ireland by ensuring that high speed broadband is available to all citizens and businesses. This will be achieved by providing a policy and regulatory framework that assists in accelerating and incentivising commercial investment and a State-led investment for areas where it is not commercial for the market to invest.

In order to progress the State-led investment for areas where it is not commercial for the market to invest, a full procurement process must be designed and EU state aids approval must be obtained. My Department is engaged in a comprehensive mapping exercise of the current and anticipated investment by the commercial sector to identify where the market is expected to deliver high-speed broadband services over the coming years. The results of this mapping exercise will inform the precise areas that need to be targeted in the State-led investment as envisaged in the national broadband plan. Intensive technical, financial and legal preparations, including stakeholder engagement, are ongoing. The procurement process for the approved intervention will be carried out in accordance with EU and Irish procurement rules. Since the publication of the plan, investments by the commercial sector are underway in both fixed line and wireless high speed broadband services, particularly in urban and semi-urban areas. There is evidence that industry is investing beyond the targets to which it committed in the plan.

I will set out some of the key developments in the short and medium term. The e-fibre investment programme is a further very positive development in the Irish telecommunications market. Eircom launched its next generation broadband services in May last with speeds of up to 70 megabits per second, Mbps, immediately available to over 300,000 premises. By the end of this year, Eircom aims to reach more than 600,000 homes and businesses. It has a target to pass 1.2 million premises by June 2015. Full details of its roll-out plans are available on Eircom's website in a user-friendly on-line map. Last week, the company announced the launch of its new television service which is linked to its e-fibre investment programme. This is a further very positive development in the Irish telecommunications market.

UPC is continuing with its investment in the cable network and recently boosted its entry level package from 50 Mbps per second to 120 Mbps and its top speed to 200 Mbps. This increase will be immediately available to some 656,000 households in the areas covered by UPC's network. Other fixed operators also continue to invest in local loop unbundling. BT Ireland now supplies broadband access to both Vodafone and Sky Ireland and along with other operators is also investing in fixed infrastructure. Meteor and Vodafone have announced the launch of 4G services and the other mobile service providers are planning similar roll outs in the coming months. Some of this investment will also involve significant improvement to current 3G coverage throughout the country.

Deputies will also be aware that the ESB is currently considering the prospect of utilising its distribution network to roll out fibre broadband services. I am, therefore, confident that with the continued significant private sector investment combined with the planned targeted State intervention, we will achieve our ambition of ensuring the ubiquitous availability of modern, resilient high-speed broadband services to all parts of the country in the next few years.

See this speech in context