Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his kind words. I look forward to working with him, hopefully in closer quarters when we return to the Dáil Chamber.

The high-speed broadband map shows the areas in Cork East which will be included in the national broadband plan, as well as areas targeted by commercial operators. As I said earlier, the map is colour coded and searchable by address and Eircode. Premises in the amber area will be provided with high-speed broadband through the State-led intervention, the contract for which was signed in November last with National Broadband Ireland, NBI. There are 16,200 premises in Cork East falling into this category. The blue area represents those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high-speed broadband services and covers 25,087 premises in Cork East. The light blue area represents Eir's commercial rural deployment plans for high-speed rural broadband, including Cork East as part of a commitment agreement. Some 177 premises in Cork East fall into this category.

The NBP network will offer those premises a high-speed connection of 150Mbps. All counties will see premises passed in the first two years and over 90% of premises will have access to high-speed broadband within the next four years. Design work is complete or ongoing in target townlands across 17 counties and progress is being made on the over 40,000 premises surveyed to date. Contractors have commenced surveying in surrounding areas of Midleton. Surveying in the Youghal and surrounding areas is due to commence early next year.

The Government is currently engaging with National Broadband Ireland to explore accelerating aspects of the plan and to bring forward premises which are currently scheduled in years six and seven to an earlier date. These discussions are ongoing and a preliminary position will be arrived at by the end of the summer.

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