Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan for consistently raising issues in respect of the national broadband plan on behalf of his constituents. The national broadband plan contract was signed with National Broadband Ireland in November 2019 to roll out a high-speed and future-proofed broadband network within the intervention area, which covers 1.1 million people living and working in the over 544,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with 695 schools.

The national broadband plan will ensure that citizens throughout the entire country have access to high-speed broadband services and that nobody is left without this vital service. The national broadband plan network will offer users a high-speed broadband service with a minimum download speed of 500 Mbps from the outset.

The current deployment plan forecasts premises passed in all counties within the first two years and over 90% of premises in the State having access to high-speed broadband within the next four years. The high-speed broadband map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ieshows the areas which will be included in the national broadband plan State-led intervention, as well as areas targeted by commercial operators.

Design work is complete or ongoing in target townlands in every county in Ireland, with over 136,000 premises surveyed as of 23 November. This survey work is feeding into detailed designs for each deployment area, and build work has started in rural parts of Cork, Limerick, Cavan and Galway. The first connections are expected shortly in Carrigaline, County Cork. These will be subject to technical testing and validation prior to a wider release in the area.

While substantial progress has been made to date, the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the delivery of the fibre network as a result of restrictions imposed on travel and social distancing. The Minister's Department is monitoring the situation closely and National Broadband Ireland has committed to putting in place measures to mitigate these impacts as much as possible. The extent of the impact is currently being assessed.

The Covid-19 pandemic has also highlighted the importance of reliable broadband to ensure that citizens in rural Ireland can have the high-speed connectivity required to facilitate remote working, education, social interaction and online shopping. This is reflected in the programme for Government, as delivery of the national broadband plan will be a key enabler of many of the policies envisaged, particularly those around increased levels of remote working.

The programme for Government specifically commits to seek to accelerate the roll-out of the national broadband plan. In this regard, the Minister's Department continues to engage with National Broadband Ireland to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of this roll-out to establish the possibility of bringing forward premises which are currently scheduled for the sixth and seventh years of the current plan to an earlier date. As part of that work, National Broadband Ireland is engaging with the ESB to assess the potential to utilise the ESB network for certain areas. The potential to accelerate the network roll-out is being explored in parallel with the measures required to mitigate delays arising as a result of Covid-19.

Broadband connection points are a key element of the national broadband plan. These provide high-speed broadband in every county in advance of the roll-out of the fibre-to-the-home network. As at 20 November, some 201 broadband connection point sites have been installed by National Broadband Ireland, 59 of which are now connected to high-speed broadband services through a service provider contract with Vodafone which is managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development for publicly available sites. In addition, primary schools are also being provided with high-speed broadband, for educational use only, through service provider contracts managed by the Department of Education. To date, 22 schools have been connected with high-speed broadband for educational purposes.

I am aware that concerns have been raised by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications Networks regarding the level of information available on the deployment of the NBI network. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has advised me that National Broadband Ireland is working to provide more detail on the deployment programme on its website, with rolling updates on the network build.

See this speech in context