Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The subsidised provision of fibre broadband across all regions of the country is critical to Ireland's economic and social progress. Despite being plagued by delays, National Broadband Ireland has stated it is confident that all 227 deployment areas will be completed by early 2028. While the broadband project may be almost four years away from its projected completion, existing commercial suppliers of broadband, such as Imagine, which services large parts of the country, now has an immediate and serious financial viability problem. Imagine is now closely examining its immediate future in the market and the outlook for it is bleak without Government support. Imagine is one of the key suppliers of high-speed broadband using fixed wireless access technology. It currently has 47,000 customers across every county in Ireland of whom 2,400 are in Tipperary. These are predominantly rural connections. Some 40,000 of its customers fall into the defined national broadband intervention area, which ensures they will be connected to high-speed broadband within four years if the projected completion dates are met. If Imagine is forced to wind down in the coming months without a planned transition to the NBI, there will be a blackout for an unsuspecting 47,000 customers. The impact of this would be catastrophic. Allowing the unplanned wind-down of this commercial provider would set back the impacted regions across the country for years. The threat posed to businesses, emergency and medical services, schools, remote workers, farmers and all local service providers is incalculable. Community centres and local charities and sports clubs would lose an invaluable local link. Communicating online with loved ones abroad would almost become impossible. Homes and businesses that depend on having reliable contact would be cast adrift. Positive advancements made around rural regions of the country would begin to evaporate. Restoring them could realistically take decades. It would plunge large parts of the country back to pre-broadband days. The Government needs to give serious consideration to this very real eventuality. I ask the Taoiseach and his relevant Ministers to urgently meet existing suppliers such as Imagine.

The Government needs to identify a constructive plan that will ensure the continuation of high-speed broadband services while work is under way to roll out the national plan. Provisions must be made for the real possibility that thousands of people in Tipperary and across the country face blackout if private broadband suppliers pull the plug on the only services currently available to the customers.

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