Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1, 2 and 5 together.

I welcome the opportunity to update the House on progress of the national broadband plan. The commercial sector has failed to bring high-speed broadband to large parts of rural Ireland. The purpose of the Government’s national broadband plan is to address this market failure. Ireland is not alone in facing this challenge. It is a challenge faced by other digitally ambitious EU member states and a number of these member states are making very significant interventions in the market to ensure the deployment of high speed broadband connectivity.

As I previously outlined, the final tender for the contract to roll out the national broadband plan was received by my Department on 18 September and this is the final stage in the procurement process. The public procurement process for the national broadband plan has of necessity been a complex and lengthy process. As Deputies will appreciate, this is no ordinary infrastructure build. The NBP is not comparable with more standard infrastructure projects, such as the construction of a school, a road or a bridge. In the case of the NBP, the procurement process has involved the bidders developing and bringing forward both the technical solution and the deployment plan to deliver that solution. Learning from earlier interventions, such as the national broadband scheme and from experience internationally, Ireland has adopted an ambitious and long-term approach to this project. As a communications sector project, the NBP is unique in its ambition.

The Government set the bar high when it set out its ambition for the national broadband plan. While this meant that bringing forward a future-proofed solution would be complex and challenging, as we have witnessed, it also acted as a catalyst to encourage very significant investment by commercial operators in deployment of high-speed broadband networks. It is without question that the pace and nature of the deployment of high-speed broadband networks by commercial operators in the past two years has been significantly influenced by the Government’s intervention through the national broadband plan. That is a welcome development for Ireland and, as a direct response to the ambition set by this Government, the services now being rolled out by commercial operators are offering a basic service of in excess of 100 Mbps download speeds.

The national broadband plan procurement process was launched following a comprehensive consultation with commercial operators on their plans to serve premises in the potential intervention area. At that point, the map included approximately 757,000 premises. While the procurement was ongoing, Eir came forward with a further commercial plan to build a high-speed broadband network to serve 300,000 of those premises within the planned State intervention area. Eir’s submission was evaluated by my Department in accordance with the criteria that apply to the NBP mapping process and was found to be a credible plan. As a consequence, and in keeping with state aid rules, the map had to be revised to remove these 300,000 premises. This is evidence of an aspect of the complexity of managing a procurement process to address a clear market failure, when commercial companies can continue to bring forward investment plans in parallel with the procurement process.

For the people, schools and businesses located within the Eir rural deployment area, Eir’s investment was very positive and today, based on recent information from Eir, approximately 220,000 premises have been passed and have access to a high speed broadband service as a result.

For the NBP procurement process, however, it added considerable complexity, did little to reduce the cost of building a State subsidised network, while considerably reducing potential revenues.

I appreciate the genuine interest of Deputies in seeing a successful outcome to the NBP procurement process and to the deployment of high-speed broadband services in every constituency of this country. The interest of Deputies is evident from the fact that since my appointment as Minister, I have replied to almost 750 parliamentary questions on broadband, many of them exhorting me to accelerate the procurement process, including almost 70 questions from Deputies Dooley, Stanley and Pringle.

There are 1.1 million Irish citizens waiting for the deployment of this future-proofed network which will have a fundamentally positive impact on their lives. The successful roll-out of high-speed broadband infrastructure will mean that the ability to live and work in any area in Ireland will not be constrained by a lack of connectivity. This is a goal we all want to achieve.

Evaluation of the final tender submission is ongoing and will be allowed the time required. On conclusion of the evaluation, my Department will make a recommendation to me on whether to appoint the bidder as preferred bidder and I will bring the matter to Government for decision.

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