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

First, I will give Deputy Ó Murchú further details, maybe on his own county, County Louth, to give an example of more precise figures. As of 29 April last, more than 7,800 premises had been surveyed in the county with over 4,000 premises under construction or complete, almost 3,200 premises available to order or pre-order, and almost 2,500 premises passed and available for immediate connection. That is real and immediate. It is there today, here and now.

I would agree with the Deputy's closing comment about the need for real co-ordination between Eir and NBI. It is critical to the success and acceleration of this project. I had a meeting with the chief executive and chairman of Eir recently. We made the case, and they readily agreed, that the flexible fast operation between their contractors and National Broadband Ireland and the dovetailing between those two organisations to get poles up, to get ducts cleared and to get the process really moving fast will be key. My Department, NBI and Eir are working on an ongoing basis to make sure that happens.

I have had ongoing experience with SIRO. It is an example of another similar project involving the large-scale deployment of fibre. In many of these projects, it takes time to get up to speed. It is typical in large complex infrastructure projects such as these that in the first year or two - we were hampered by Covid - it takes time to work out the mechanism or the physical way of deploying the fibre. That is what is happening in the NBI plan, as happened in other big infrastructure projects. I am confident we will deliver for the Irish people.

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