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

I thank Deputy Dooley for raising this matter. It is of considerable importance. The backdrop to the national broadband plan is exactly as the Deputy described. The purpose of the national broadband plan was to promote commercial investment to the maximum extent possible. Indeed there has been €2.75 billion worth of investment in upgrading telecommunications networks since the national broadband plan process started.

The issue of the intervention area where a subsidy can apply, as the Deputy has said, is confined to areas where it has been established that other companies will not provide a commercial service to an adequate standard. Some time ago it was envisaged that there would be approximately 750,000 premises in the intervention area. However, through monitoring by my Department and discussions with the commercial providers the figure was reduced by 300,000 where Eir undertook to deliver to the necessary standard on a commercial basis. At the same time some areas were added to the amber area or the intervention area provided the Department was satisfied that people in the relevant areas would not be served by companies that had previously signalled an ability to do so.

The position on these new investments, which are welcome indeed, is that my Department is seeking an early meeting with both companies. At this point neither operator has submitted commercial or technical plans for the Department to assess. For the Department to determine that the companies have met the standard to reduce the size of the intervention area we will need to have a certain level of scrutiny of the proposals. The intention of the national broadband plan was to deliver to 100% of premises a high-speed service, which was specified at that stage as being 30 Mbps.

The only other comment to be made is that the two announcements by Eir and Imagine are somewhat different. The announcement by Eir covered expanding the company's commitment to deliver fibre to the home. This indicates the trend of the thinking across much of the sector that fibre to the home is the standard to which we need to move in the long term. The Imagine proposal is delivered through wireless technology so it is somewhat different in its delivery. I realise there were comments and questions in the committee about the capacity to deliver 100% in the way that fibre would. These are issues that the Department will want to work out with the two companies to see what impact they might have on the intervention area.

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