Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There were a lot of figures in the Minister of State's response and I noted some of them. Importantly, the original target for the end of January 2022 was 115,000 premises. That was reduced to 60,000 a number of months ago. By the end of January, about 35,000 houses were passed. NBI told us at the end of January that by the end of March it would be back on track and would hit that 60,000 target. Now the Minister of State tells the Dáil that, instead of 60,000, NBI passed approximately 42,000 premises between the end of January and the start of April, so it is passing about 3,200 premises a month. At that rate it will not make 60,000 by the end of the year. The Minister of State referred to another target, 102,000 by the end of January of next year. The original target for the start of next year was 205,000. This project has been reducing its ambition and is missing even that reduced ambition. I would be sending up a flare at this stage if I were the Minister of State.

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