Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to address the House on this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and I thank the Deputy for raising it.

Ireland's telecommunications market has been liberalised since 1999 and has developed into a well regulated market, supporting a multiplicity of commercial operators providing services over a diverse range of technology platforms. The State is not a service provider in this market and can only intervene in cases of demonstrated market failure. Considerable progress has been made in recent years in both coverage and speeds of national broadband infrastructure. A combination of private investment and State intervention, including the national broadband scheme and the rural broadband scheme, means that Ireland has met the European Commission digital agenda target of having a basic broadband service available to all areas by the 2013 deadline. The focus must now turn to accelerating the roll out of high speed broadband.

Current Government policy in this regard was adopted last year with the publication of the national broadband plan. The plan commits to the delivery of high speed broadband across the country. Delivery of this commitment is to be achieved through a combination of a State led investment in those areas where it is evident that the market will not deliver and by ensuring that the environment in right to maximise investment by the private sector. I am pleased to advise the Deputy that since the publication of the plan there is evidence that industry is investing beyond the targets to which it originally committed. In this regard, eircom has extended its plans for the roll out of high speed services with speeds of up to 100 mbps to be delivered to 1.4 million homes. UPC has also increased its minimum and top speed products to 120 mbps and 200 mbps, respectively. Additionally, mobile operators are rolling out enhanced product offerings with Meteor and Vodafone having launched 4G mobile broadband services. Vodafone is also upgrading its 3G services to provide nationwide 3G coverage. Other operators continue to invest and Sky has entered the broadband market, offering services over the eircom network.

Despite these welcome developments, many towns, villages and communities, particularly in rural Ireland, will receive little of this investment and the Deputy has drawn attention to that. It is accepted that Ireland's widely dispersed population and topography means it is simply not viable for the commercial sector to provide services in some areas. In an effort to address the unacceptable digital divide between rural and urban areas, the Minister's Department is engaged in intensive technical, financial and preparatory work to define the scope of the State-led investment which will facilitate the widespread availability of reliable and guaranteed high speed broadband.

In parallel, a comprehensive mapping exercise of current and anticipated investment by the commercial sector is advancing. This exercise will identify where the market is expected to deliver high speed broadband services over the coming years and consequently the precise areas that will need to be targeted by the State-led investment. A full procurement process must be designed and EU state aid approval must be obtained to progress this investment. The procurement process for the approved intervention will be carried out in accordance with EU and Irish procurement rules and it is expected that it will be launched in 2014.

See this speech in context