Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Ryan, has engaged with NBI on this. He and I together have engaged with Eir on it and we are exploring any possibilities that exist to speed up the roll-out of the national broadband plan. Unfortunately, it is running a little bit behind because of Covid-19. It is running a few months behind but we want to accelerate it and, if possible, make it a four- to five-year programme rather than the seven-year programme it is now. At a minimum, however, we will connect 100,000 homes, farms and businesses across rural Ireland every year. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and I are working together on the issue of remote hubs and we have additional funding for them this year. There are 300 hubs across the country and we want to upgrade them and build more. There will be funding for that as well.

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