Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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9. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the total number of premises to be covered by the national broadband plan between State intervention and commercial operators; the latest timetable for implementation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32284/16]

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Over the course of the summer, the Minister announced that it had emerged that 170,000 homes previously considered to be adequately covered for the next generation of broadband connection were unlikely to access high-speed broadband services. I ask him to enlighten us a little more on the position as regards these homes and indicate how many homes he expects will be covered under the national broadband plan.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 and 13 together.

The Government's national broadband plan, NBP, aims to ensure that every citizen and business, regardless of location, has access to a high quality, high-speed broadband service which will stimulate businesses and communities in villages and towns across Ireland. The NBP is a national plan and aims to connect all premises in Ireland including those on our offshore islands, 66 of which are inhabited and which have a total population of 9,000. The national broadband plan is being achieved through private investment by commercial telecommunications companies and State intervention in areas where commercial investment has not been fully demonstrated.

The commercial telecommunications sector has invested more than €2 billion in the past four years in upgrading and modernising networks which support the provision of high-speed broadband and mobile telecoms services. This investment is continuing and approximately 1.3 million premises in Ireland can now get high-speed broadband of at least 30 Mbps. I will cite some examples. Virgin Media currently provides services of up to 360 Mbps, which are passing more than 750,000 premises. Eir’s broadband roll-out of services of up to 100 Mbps has passed 1.3 million premises across Ireland. SIRO, an initiative made possible by Oireachtas legislation introduced by my Department - I remember supporting the Bill in question at the time - is rolling out fibre to the home in  towns across Ireland. To date, 17 towns and 30,000 premises have been passed by SIRO. Wireless operators have developed new technologies capable of delivering speeds of 100 Mbps. Mobile operators are also rolling out 4G services across Ireland. This is significantly enhancing the mobile broadband experience.

The high-speed broadband map, available at www.broadband.gov.ie, shows the extent of the State intervention area and the areas targeted for commercial services. There are approximately 2.3 million premises in the State. Of these, up to 1.6 million premises are in the commercial area, which is marked in blue on the map, and more than 750,000 premises are in the State intervention area, which is marked in amber on the map. On 5 July 2016, I announced that my Department had also identified that up to an additional 170,000 premises, which are currently marked in blue on the high-speed broadband map, are unlikely to get access to services. My Department is conducting further analysis to identify these additional premises, with a view to ensuring they can get a connection either by including them in the formal procurement process or through an alternative mechanism. This work will conclude in the coming weeks and will be reflected in a further update to the high-speed broadband map.

The Department is now in a formal procurement process to select a company or companies which will roll out a new high-speed broadband network to all of the premises in the intervention area, which covers 100,000 km of road network and 96% of the land area of Ireland. Intensive dialogue with bidders is continuing. Approximately 150 hours of dialogue have taken place and more than 2,000 pages of contract documentation has been provided to the bidders. The three bidders have indicated that they are proposing a predominantly fibre to the home solution. Householders and businesses may get speeds not just of 30 Mbps but potentially up to 1,000 Mbps, with businesses potentially availing of symmetrical upload and download speeds.

Earlier this year, before I came into office, the Department announced it would be June 2017 before contracts were awarded under the national broadband plan. The bidders in the process have recently indicated that they may need more time to conclude the procurement process. The timing of each stage of the procurement continues to be dependent on a range of factors, including the complexities that may be encountered by the procurement team and bidders during the procurement process. Bidders need adequate time to prepare detailed proposals and their final formal bids and get the relevant shareholder and funding approvals at key stages of the process. I do not propose to comment any further at this juncture given the sensitivity of discussions in the procurement process.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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What I have gleaned from the Minister's reply is that he does not know how many homes or premises will be covered by the national plan or when the procurement process will conclude.

4 o’clock

There is no clear timeline for its completion and no plan that dictates a start point for the roll-out to begin. I am not laying this at the Minister's door as he is a relatively short period in office. However, he deals with constituents in the same way that I do. The programme for Government in 2011 stated that 90% of the homes and businesses in Ireland would have fibre broadband by 2015 but that did not happen. Prior to the 2016 general election, commitments were made to meet the target of 100% coverage by 2020. The pre-procurement process is underway and contracts were to be awarded by June 2017. We were told there would be a three-year to five-year timeframe for the ultimate build-out.

The Minister can understand how vast groups of people throughout the country do not believe anything that emanates from his Department at this stage and anything he has said today would not give them confidence. It is a kind of rolling exercise - it depends on how it goes. The facts are that there are many people in homes and communities who are in dire need of broadband, not just for business, but for education for their families and so on. We understand the contracts will require nothing more than a document speed of 30 Mbps and an upload speed of 6 Mbps, while the commercial world is offering up to 1,000 Mbps. Much higher speeds need to enshrined in the tender documents.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Deputy Dooley has raised a number of questions. With regard to the speeds, to the best of my knowledge there is no commercial operator offering 1,000 Mbps at the moment. What I am telling the Deputy here and now is that, under the national broadband plan, the rural areas throughout this country will potentially be able to get up to 1,000 Mbps because the contractors are telling me they will predominantly provide fibre to the home. We will see a turnaround in regard to speeds in that people in the most isolated rural communities will have significantly higher broadband speeds than those available in many parts of this city and other urban areas across the country.

The number in the intervention area at present is 757,000 premises. We said last June there are potentially another 170,000 homes in the blue area, to which the company said it would have brought high-speed broadband by 31 December. We now know that is not the case and we are going through that. This is why, when I met Members of the Oireachtas in the AV room in Leinster House last June, I actively encouraged them to ask the public to go onto our website at www.broadband.gov.ieto see if they are in the blue area, and, if they are not getting or are not promised those speeds by the end of the year, they should let us know.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The Minister of State, Deputy Seán Kyne, has argued with me that we should start with the islands and work back in regard to the rollout of broadband. I know he is discussing this with the Minister, Deputy Heather Humphreys.

Let me make it crystal clear that every second level school in Ireland has a minimum of 100 Mbps broadband speed, whether it is on the mainland or on an island. What is hugely disappointing for me, as the Minister who funded the roll-out of this broadband through my Department, is that a number of the schools are not using it. I was amazed to learn from talking to some second level schoolteachers during the summer about the lack of engagement in regard to the high-speed broadband that is currently available in our second level schools. As the Deputy said, this could provide a far broader range of subjects. On some of the islands, for the first time, second level pupils are getting access to honours maths, a subject that was never available to them before. I would urge parents and pupils to actively encourage principals and teachers in the schools to use the broadband they have.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I would be slow to lecture the schools in regard to the use of broadband. The difficulty they have is when the children go home and attempt to do their homework. If they are a couple of miles from the school, they have very poor coverage when they attempt to connect with the Internet. I can understand how some principals would not raise expectations because they find that children are not able to participate in the kind of environment they would want.

We need the Minister to recognise there will be further delays. He should hard wire into the contract documentation minimum speeds well above what is being talked about. As I have met them too, I accept the operators are coming to the Minister and offering him this, that and the other, but unless it is a requirement in the contract documentation, there will be no obligation on the operators who ultimately win the contracts to provide those speeds. It may be available in some areas or at some times of the day, but it will not be available uniformly. Some 30 Mbps is too slow as an upper limit.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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First, 30 Mbps will never be and is not, as part of this contract, an upper limit for anything whatsoever. The contract that will be signed by whoever the successful bidder is, or bidders are, will be future-proofed for the next 25 years. That is why they have now committed to bringing fibre to the homes of the vast majority of premises across the country. As a result, we are going to see speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps. No one in this country is getting that at a domestic level at the moment and it is not being offered by any commercial operator, but we will be able to provide it. We are future-proofing this contract for the next 25 to 50 years.

With regard to school premises, there is not much point putting the facilities in place and then taking the attitude that Deputy Dooley is taking. First, we need to utilise the assets that are there and provide access to online courses in a range of subjects that are not available in those schools at the moment. There is no reason those schools cannot be opened in the evening as well. Some of them provide adult education classes and there are opportunities in that regard also. With the national task force on broadband and wireless, we are improving the existing coverage so people will be able to get services in the short term as well.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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On the weather report, the weather on Inis Oírr was fabulous when I was there.

On the Deputy's point, let me make it crystal clear that the rolling out of the national broadband plan will take place in every single county at the same time. Just because County Roscommon has the worst broadband connection in the country and the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Heather Humphreys, represents County Monaghan which has the second worst broadband connection in the country does not mean that they will be first two counties in which the plan will be rolled out, with everywhere else being left behind. That will not be the approach taken. Every single community will have an opportunity. The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs is prioritising consideration of how the programme will be rolled out in each county. Do we focus on primary schools and community centres initially or do we focus on industrial estates or the areas in the vicinity of towns? These questions are all being teased out and there is engagement with the local authorities and local Leader groups. I look forward to receiving the submission from the Minister.