Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy missed earlier exchanges that might have answered some of his questions. I ask the House to forgive me if I am being repetitive. As I said in response to earlier questions, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment has received a final tender submission from the bidder in respect of the ongoing procurement process for the national broadband plan. My priority is to bring the procurement process to a fair and impartial conclusion as quickly as possible. I will bring a recommendation to the Government in this regard in the coming weeks. The level of subsidy required to bring high-speed broadband services to the 540,000 premises in the national broadband plan State intervention area will be determined through this procurement process. Until the assessment is concluded, I will not be in a position to formulate a recommendation for the Government. I am not yet in a position to discuss cost. With regard to the completion of the build of the infrastructure, if a contract is awarded and signed, deployment will commence at the earliest possible opportunity with activity across all counties in the first year of deployment. Given that deployment is likely to take some years, if a contract is awarded the bidder will be required to provide almost 300 broadband connection points across all counties in the first year of deployment. These broadband connection points have been selected by local authorities and are locations of community importance such as schools and community centres.

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