Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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39. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the implementation status of the national broadband plan; and the date by which the contract for the State intervention area will be awarded. [49412/17]

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The regular update from the Minister to this House relates to where we are at in the procurement process of the national broadband plan. He will be well aware that the programme for Government, to which he is a signatory, and of which he is a significant beneficiary as a Minister, sets out a commitment to have an agreement in place to sign off with a contractor for the project in June 2017. We are now approaching Christmas. The Taoiseach told us in the House last week that from his point of view, the national broadband plan has seen significant and unacceptable delays and it will be some time next year before the project is signed off. Can the Minister set out a timetable as to when he hopes to appoint a contractor, when the work will begin, and when he thinks the last tranche of houses in the State ultimately will get high-speed broadband?

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The national broadband plan, NBP, is about connecting people in rural areas, towns and villages across Ireland to high-speed broadband through a combination of commercial investment and State-led intervention. The NBP continues to act as a catalyst to commercial investment, with more than €2.75 billion invested by industry over the past five years. That is €1.8 million every single day.

Examples of the high rate of investment include Eir's rural deployment of broadband to 300,000 premises. Eir has surpassed its target of 101,000 premises passed by the third quarter of 2017. Siro continues its roll-out to 500,000 premises across 51 towns, with more than 100,000 premises now passed. Enet and SSE's plan to provide high-speed broadband to 115,000 homes in the west and north west is under way. Virgin Media continues its plans to expand its high-speed service to an additional 200,000 homes. Imagine has also committed to a deployment of fixed wireless broadband services particularly in rural and other more remote areas. A number of other operators have engaged with the Department on roll-out plans. The communications regulator's auction of the 3.6 GHz spectrum will also help pave the way for next generation connectivity for mobile customers.

When I was appointed Minister, just over 50% of homes and businesses in Ireland had access to high-speed broadband. Today the equivalent figure is 65% and by the end of next year, it will have risen to 77%. By the end of 2020, more than 90% of premises in Ireland will have access to high-speed broadband.

As a result of the national broadband plan we are witnessing a significant increase in the availability of high-speed broadband in Ireland. The Government is committed to leaving no one behind. Delivering connectivity to the 542,000 premises that fall within the State-led intervention phase of the national broadband plan remains a Government priority.

In the public procurement process, the NBP specialist team is continuing its evaluation of the detailed submissions of the two bidders, which were received last September. This is the last stage of the procurement process before moving to the final tender stage and subsequently the appointment of a preferred bidder or bidders. I fully appreciate that people want quality mobile and broadband connectivity as soon as possible and reiterate that this remains a priority for the Government, for me and for my Department. To help achieve that my Department will engage with the winning bidder or bidders to ensure the most efficient deployment as part of the NBP contract.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister's response is as ridiculous as if José Mourinho, when asked about the performance of Manchester United, were to respond by telling us how Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool are doing. I asked the Minister to outline on numerous occasions in this House where the Government is at in respect of the national broadband plan in providing high-speed broadband to those 542,000 homes. He comes in week after week and month after month telling us what Eir, Siro and Virgin Media are doing. I know what they are doing. They are not State secrets. Those companies communicate with me and I communicate with them, as does everybody else. What is farcical is that the Minister created a situation in an arrangement with Eir that put in place a scenario whereby it rolled out fibre to certain areas and then stopped. There are people on the other end whose appetite has been whetted. They have seen the fibre come so far but no further. They cannot understand why fibre goes as far as a certain house but ten adjacent houses are not connected and have no idea when they will be connected. The reality is that they are the prize for Eir or Enet, whoever ultimately wins the contract. Those people now need clarity from the Minister.

The Minister should set out the situation for us clearly and give us an indicative date. There must be a project plan or Gantt chart somewhere. That is standard operational practice with any contract. I ask the Minister to set out for us clearly when he hopes to sign off on the deal. If it runs over by a month or two I will not beat him up about it. He will at least have drawn a line in the sand and then he can set out clearly from there the length of the project. This is not rocket science. It just takes a little bit of initiative on his side and gives some certainty to the people who are seeing the fibre come within a snowball's distance of their door but they have been left waiting. They cannot understand why they cannot get connected.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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When I was appointed as Minister last May 12 months, no one envisaged that at this stage we would be talking about fibre being on the ground in rural areas.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We thought it would be done.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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It is happening. I have said before that my focus is on delivery not indicative dates. People in this country are sick and tired of being promised they would have broadband by a certain date but it has not happened. My priority is the people who have not got high-speed broadband at the moment. I am leaving no stone unturned to ensure that is delivered as quickly as possible. We have a core team within the Department of 39 people directly involved in the issue. The broader team involving external advisers is about 80 people. This is a 25-year contract. It is fundamentally important that we get it right, not just for the people who need broadband today but for the next generation and the generation after that. We need to make sure that we get it right once and for all and that we do not have any more hollow promises in relation to it.

In the interim I am working with the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring, to provide hot desks in rural communities where fibre is located. If people cannot have high-speed broadband of 1,000 Mbps in their own home they can have it in their own local community centre to enable them to work from there rather than being obliged to commute into the city. We are working with wireless and mobile operators to see how we can exploit the fibre that is already rolled out across the country to improve the existing services that are available so people have access to a broadband service before they have access to the high-speed broadband service.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I do not know if the Minister's constituency office is as inundated as is mine with people who are concerned about the issue. I am sure it is but I do not intend to offer such a solution to anybody. I refer in particular to families where children come home at the weekend from college or with secondary schoolchildren. I do not want to say that they should toddle off to the community centre to find a hotspot to do their homework, assignments and projects. We know that when people are on holidays, they drop in to the local McDonald's to get access to high-speed broadband. That is fine for a holiday environment but many people in the 542,000 cohort require broadband to live their lives, do their studies, apply for jobs and in the case of farmers to return information to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We must address the issue. The sooner the Minister sets out dates the better as it will force others to meet the deadlines. That is his job and it is the challenge of the companies to adhere to them.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Many of my constituents do not have mobile phone coverage never mind broadband services. As Minister, I am determined to make sure that every single person, home and premises in this country gets access to high-speed broadband. I am determined not to stop until that happens.

It is important to point out that 27% of our population live in villages of fewer than 50 people. We have one of the most dispersed populations on the globe. Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet, came to Dublin last June. He said that Ireland was working on one of the hardest problems that we know about, that is, a highly distributed, highly rural and low-density population. He said that our success would be a real beacon for other populations that have similar rural populations.

No one in the world has done what we are doing. We were the first country in the world to bring electricity to every home in the country. We will be the first country in the world to bring high-speed broadband. I am monitoring this on an ongoing basis to ensure that it happens and that it takes not a day longer than is absolutely necessary. I will ensure that every home, no matter how isolated, gets high-speed broadband as quickly as possible.