Dáil debates

Tuesday, 2 October 2018

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Broadband Service Provision

6:40 pm

Photo of Robert TroyRobert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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It is welcome that I finally have the opportunity to raise this issue. There is the roll-out of broadband to many homes, although other homes just metres away will not be able to avail of the roll-out. This and the previous Government's record in the roll-out of broadband has been dire. The facts do not lie. Ireland lies 42nd in the global ranking for the distribution of high speed broadband, while 40% of the population and 96% of the country lack access to commercial or fibre broadband coverage. That represents a figure of approximately 2.3 million premises.

On behalf of the Government, the Minister signed an agreement with Eir to provide broadband for 300,000 premises. I want to know how these premises were identified. Clearly, it was done by way of a desktop exercise, with no relevance given to how it would impact on the ground. I can give scores of examples where there is the roll-out of broadband to one house on a road but not to the next, or it is occurring at either end of the road, leaving five houses in the middle without a connection to broadband. They include places such as Lynn Road, Mullingar; Tornanstown; Gaybrook; Knockaville; Killucan; Cumminstown; Ballinacarrig; Irishtown, Mullingar; Kilbeggan; Coola Lawns, where certain houses in the estate have access to broadband, while others do not; Ballinamudda; Moate; and Killinure North, Athlone. These are just a number of examples.

In reply to a parliamentary question the Minister said any decision by the company to provide a service for premises not covered by the commitment agreement would be a matter for it, not one in which he had any role. That is factually incorrect. No matter when I contact the company about the provision of broadband in all of these areas, it states it is prohibited from rolling out the service any further. It is disgraceful.

6:50 pm

Photo of Michael MoynihanMichael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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That is the kernel of the issue. It is about whether the contract needs to be altered by the Government to allow Eir to proceed. There are scores of areas throughout the country, including my own, where the Eir roll-out is coming. We can talk about the major issue in relation to broadband, but this is specifically about the contract that has been given by the Government to Eir. We have communities in places where the company is stopping, yet there are only three or four more houses to go on the line. Instead, a different line comes from a different direction. We have places like Banteer, Knocknagree, Bweeng, Cullen, Newmarket, Lisrobin, Boherbue and Ballinora where this is coming to a specific location. We have contacted the Department which says it is Eir's responsibility to extend the line. When we contact Eir, it says it is prohibited from going any further because of the contract it has been given by the State. Someone needs to tell us who is blocking this and how it can be changed. It makes no sense from a logistical or common-sense point of view to have roads being divided completely by this. The Minister must look at it and ensure there is flexibility within the contract to allow the company to complete a particular section of road which may involve only three or four houses. In some instances, there are different telephone exchanges coming from either side, with one or two houses are left in the middle. Eir tells us the Government and the contract prohibit it from extending it and the Government tells us it is Eir. Both cannot be right. Someone somewhere is telling untrue stories. We need to get to the bottom of it and we need flexibility to allow common sense to prevail. There is a whole different argument about the fact that the different commitments on broadband do not add up.

Photo of Seán KyneSeán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputies Troy and Michael Moynihan for raising this issue. I welcome the opportunity to address the House on the matter. As appears from the reply to Question No. 78 of 18 September 2018, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten, signed a commitment agreement with Eir in April 2017 on the plan to provide high-speed broadband to 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis. Eir states that to date more than 177,000 premises have been provided for. The national broadband plan aims to deliver high-speed broadband to every citizen and business in Ireland. This has been achieved through a combination of commercial investment and State-led intervention. Under EU competition rules, the State can only intervene where there is evidence of market failure and where commercial investment is unlikely. Eir selected some 300,000 premises for high-speed broadband based on the company's own analysis. These premises had been categorised for inclusion in the State intervention area under the national broadband plan. In April 2017, my Department determined that the company's deployment plans were credible and, accordingly, the premises were deemed commercial and removed from the State intervention area.

The Deputies queried the assessment of properties on a case-by-case basis. Eir has selected the premises to be included in its roll-out on the basis of internal commercial criteria as permitted when commerciality of an area can be demonstrated. Neither the Minister, Deputy Naughten, nor I nor my Department had any input in that process. My role and that of the Minister relate only to oversight and verification that these premises are passed according to the milestones laid out in the commitment agreement. Eir has stated publicly that it is not in a position to include additional premises on a case-by-case basis and this is entirely a matter for the company. All commercial decisions are matters for private operators in the market. I appreciate the frustration felt by people who see the deployment by operators throughout the country but who themselves continue to wait for a high-speed broadband service. Those premises not served through a commercial investment will be included in the State intervention area, which will build a high-speed broadband network in the areas not served by the commercial operators.

The Department is engaged in the formal procurement process to select a company to roll out a high-speed broadband network in the State intervention area and is now evaluating the final tender submission received from the bidding consortium on 18 September 2018. This is a significant milestone as the national broadband plan procurement process enters its final stages. I assure the House that every day more and more people in every county benefit from access to high-speed broadband as a direct result of the Government's action on the national broadband plan. I continue to be committed to the delivery of high-speed broadband to every home and business in Ireland. Today, of the 2.3 million premises in Ireland, seven out of every ten have access to high-speed broadband and it is anticipated that by the end of the year, that will grow to eight out of ten. The milestones are important. It is expected that a tender will be signed with the final bidder before the end of the year with roll-out to start in the intervention area for all 540,000 premises from 2019 on. That will take time. It is expected that from early 2019, every house will be told exactly when it will be connected.

I share the Deputies' frustration regarding the process under which Eir selected the houses. I have made representations as a constituency Deputy to the company on houses which have been left out when the line has not been extended further up a road. I share the frustrations all Members have and, like them, I can identify areas of need. We also accept, however, that the push with the national broadband plan and the pressure applied to the commercial operators mean Eir has agreed a commitment contract with the Department which will deliver 300,000 connections. We must appreciate that. While people have been left out, 300,000 will be connected to high-speed broadband because of the commitment contract signed with the State. Unfortunately and no more than with the intervention area decided on, not every house can be connected in the one year, month or week. Things have to start somewhere and we want to ensure a regional spread when the intervention area is rolled out.

Photo of Robert TroyRobert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister refers to the 177,000 premises which have been connected, but we are raising the matter of the thousands of houses which are not going to be connected. The Minister of State has not given them any hope. He is telling them the tender process for the national broadband plan will not be completed until the end of this year. We know, based on the past record of the Government, that the timetable might not even be adhered to. It will take a number of years until such time as it is rolled out. People in the areas I have outlined could be waiting for between three and five years to have access to broadband. Meanwhile, there is a broadband provider in their vicinity and on their roads providing broadband to their neighbours which they cannot avail of. We need a little bit of creativity and some thinking outside the box. As Deputy Michael Moynihan said, it makes logistical, creative and economic sense if we are going to pay a contractor in an area to have it finish out the area rather than leave people without broadband. If we are serious about encouraging people to live in rural Ireland and about having businesses operate there, we must be serious about rolling out broadband for rural areas. Unfortunately, the Government has not been serious about that.

Photo of Michael MoynihanMichael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Before the Dáil is a discussion on the Eir contract with the Department. There are small numbers of people at the very end of each line to whom broadband should be extended. If there are eight to ten houses, the line should be completed. It is common sense for the Department to call Eir ask whether there are communities where a small amount of further investment on the contract would complete the roll-out of broadband locally. The Minister of State provided all of the statistics on the roll-out of broadband. I have listened to that for four or five years and I consider it to be pie in the sky. I cannot see any future to it. I ask the Minister of State about the five to ten houses at the end of communities and whether the Department will ask Eir to apply some flexibility. Eir tells us it cannot do it because of Department rules while the Department says it is Eir. Will the company be brought in to discuss it for the sake of a very small number? It is common sense and financial sense. Above all, it would solve the problem on the ground.

Photo of Seán KyneSeán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Eir is a private company, as the Deputies should know, given its privatisation in Fianna Fáil's time when the infrastructure was sold off. The Government signed a commitment contract with Eir to connect 300,000 houses which the company identified. The houses the Deputies talked about which are at the ends of roads will be part of the intervention area under the national broadband plan. The final tender has been received and is being evaluated by the Department and it is expected that a contract will be signed before the end of the year with an expectation that, from 2019 onwards, these houses will be connected. I cannot provide the Deputies with a timeline for each house, but it is expected that from 2019 on, every house will know when exactly it will be connected.

As to who will decide where in the intervention area the houses to which the Deputies refer will be connected or where they will start, it would make perfect sense to me, and possibly to the Deputies, that where Eir goes halfway up a road connecting houses, this would continue as part of the intervention area under the contract. This is not for me to decide; the tender must be evaluated. I understand Eir will look at the best technical and engineering solution to the roll-out. The most important thing is that we have a geographic spread, all areas are covered and there is a timeline such that there is certainty for those households not currently connected. From my understanding, my Department is neither involved in nor aware of any process for the inclusion of premises in Eir's deployment on a case-by-case basis. Eir is entitled to deploy outside the areas planned under the 300,000 deployment, as any operator would be, but it publicly and very strongly indicated it is not in a position to do so on request. It states that it can make decisions on a commercial basis, but the Government has signed off on, and Eir has given a commitment to, the 300,000, so Eir must ensure that those 300,000 houses are complete. What Eir does after that on a commercial basis is up to the company, but those houses that are not covered on a commercial basis will be covered under the national broadband plan intervention area.