Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The national broadband plan aims to ensure that every citizen and business, regardless of location, has access to a high quality, high speed broadband service. This will be achieved through a combination of commercial investments and a State-led intervention in areas where commercial services will not be provided.

The commercial telecommunications sector is currently investing approximately €2.5 billion in network upgrades and enhanced services with approximately 1.6 million of the 2.3 million premises in Ireland expected to have access to commercial high speed broadband services over the next two years.

Last November I published a national high speed coverage map for 2016. That map is available. The areas marked BLUE represent areas that will have access to the commercial sector. The AMBER areas show the target areas for the State intervention and include Knockferry in the townland of Knock North.

Members of the public can consult the map to establish for themselves the precise location and status of their individual premises.

Intensive design and planning work is under way in my Department to produce a detailed intervention strategy for the AMBER area which as I said includes the particular location referred to by the Deputy. Following a public consultation process on the draft intervention strategy this summer, I hope to move to formal procurement phase towards the end of this year in order to select a preferred bidder or bidders. The order by which locations throughout the country will be selected for delivery of service will be determined in consultation with the winning bidder or bidders.

I anticipate that the first homes and businesses will be connected in 2016 and connections will continue thereafter, with the intention of having all premises connected within a five year period. Ultimately, every premises in Ireland will have access to reliable high speed broadband as a consequence of this initiative.

This complex and ambitious project is a key priority for me and for the Government and aims to conclusively address current broadband connectivity issues in mainly rural parts of the country.

See this speech in context