Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The first question is on how many schools have not been connected. I do not have this data to hand but the final schools to be connected across the entire country are to be completed by June 2023.

The next question was on the number of homes that Eir will not connect, because they are in the intervention area, or is "not allowed to" connect as the Deputy said. Eir can connect a home anywhere in Ireland if it wants to. The provider is not excluded from providing broadband in rural areas and it does so in many cases, and we have double fibre connections going into homes where it is easy for Eir to do so. Therefore, Eir is not prevented from doing that. Let us consider a person on the border of intervention and non-intervention areas. I understand that people on the edge of the area may feel frustrated if they do not have broadband but the person next door has. In the same way, the person next door may be in County Tipperary and you may be in County Cork and you cannot play for the other person's team. That is the nature of deployment areas.

The next question was on how engagement with Eir works. I meet with Eir extremely regularly. I met with representatives this and last week. I am constantly meeting with all the industry players, including NBI and, in fact, with every broadband company and mobile operator in the country.

Deputy Ó Cuív asked where we are on targets. We met the target for this year two months ahead of schedule. We had a target of 102,000 that was to be met by the end of January 2023 but was met by 1 December 2022. It is a seven-year project that started in 2020 and will be complete by the end of 2026. It has doubled the deployment speed this year compared to last year, in other words the number of homes being passed. It will complete on time and according to budget.

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