Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The national broadband plan aims to ensure that every home, school and business in Ireland, regardless of how remote or rural, has access to high-speed broadband. This is being achieved through a combination of commercial investment throughout Ireland and State intervention in those mostly rural areas where commercial operators acting alone are unlikely to invest.

Since December 2015 the number of premises with access to high-speed broadband in Wexford has increased by over 17,000, a 44% increase. In total, the number of premises in Wexford with access to high-speed broadband is over 58,000, some 71% of the total premises in Wexford. Another 2,300 will be served by Eir's planned rural deployment. The remaining 22,000 homes, schools and businesses in Wexford will be connected under the Government's national broadband plan.

In April 2017 the Department published an updated high-speed broadband map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie. The map shows the areas targeted by commercial operators to provide high-speed broadband services and the areas that will be included in the State intervention area under the national broadband plan. The map is colour coded and searchable by address or Eircode.

The procurement process to appoint a bidder for the State intervention network is now at the final stage. The priority is to bring the procurement process to a fair and impartial conclusion as quickly as possible. The Department will now conclude its assessment of the final tender submission received from the bidders on 18 September 2018 and a recommendation will be brought to Government in the coming weeks.

See this speech in context