Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for taking this Topical Issue matter. On some level she got the cards no one would want. It is straightforward like that.

I accept that the Minister is busy. However, I believe this is a particular issue and I have said to an official in the Minister's office that I expect the Minister to come back to me on this matter.

There are several issues we need dealt with at Government level. We all welcome the initial roll-out of the national broadband plan. We see it in the light of rural electrification by the ESB and the Minister has spoken of it as such.

The remote working scheme has been talked up by the Tánaiste. He also said that supports are available and an attempt by Government has been made to look at every means from the point of view of accelerating this process. That is absolutely necessary. However, I believe we might need an operational point person for when there are issues relating to National Broadband Ireland that need to be dealt with, whether at Civil Service, local authority, cross-departmental or governmental level.

I had a meeting with representatives of National Broadband Ireland earlier in the week. In fairness, the chief executive officer and the deployment officer, among several others, were at it and I thank them for that. It is straightforward. I do not need to go through the ins and outs. I was given an update in respect of Louth. I could talk about areas of Louth that do not have deployment. I could talk about the difficulties that people have with remote working and home tutoring of children who are unable to be at school at this point. However, I will leave that all behind.

We know this is a plan to be rolled out to 544,000 premises. That number has increased. More people now live in the intervention areas. It was deemed that other areas needed to be included in the intervention area because their broadband connectivity was not good enough.

I will shift through to several of the problems. National Broadband Ireland, like everyone else, was impacted by Covid-19. The organisation is slightly behind but those responsible still intend to keep as close as possible to the timelines.

One issue needs to be brought up. Obviously, when NBI is operating in deployment areas tree trimming is an issue. I know it is an issue for the Irish Farmers Association and others. This could be a problem for the roll-out. We need a moratorium, or perhaps under the Act there is a means for a major infrastructure project like this to be accommodated. It needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Section 254 guidelines are being rolled out in respect of poles and planning. I have been told by National Broadband Ireland that this is good. Those involved expect this to be rolled out across all local authorities. Sometimes the problem is the means by which they look for permits. They will try to deal with everything. If NBI needs to put in 50 poles, maybe 30 fit the guidelines and then the operators have to deal with the others. Problems occur during operations. One of the difficulties is the fact that they have to put in fresh planning. If that planning is with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, it could take four to eight weeks. If it is with the local authority, it could be anywhere from two days to eight weeks. That is not good enough and it is holding them up.

There is also a problem with skillsets. We need to talk with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris. There is talk of taking in teams from abroad. There are difficulties around ensuring that safe passes can be sped up. I will deal with the other matters presently.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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My thanks to Deputy Ó Murchú for raising this issue. As the Deputy rightly said, I am taking this for the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ryan, this afternoon.

The national broadband plan contract was signed with National Broadband Ireland in November 2019 to roll out a high-speed and future-proof broadband network within the intervention area. The area covers 1.1 million people living and working in more than 544,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms as well as 695 schools. Despite the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, National Broadband Ireland has made steady progress on initial works. I am advised by National Broadband Ireland that, as of 11 February this year, more than 174,000 premises across 26 counties have been surveyed. This is ahead of schedule.

The next step is for National Broadband Ireland to develop a network design to deliver the new fibre-to-the-home network to these premises. Substantial design work is under way. The first fibre-to-the-home connections are in Carrigaline, County Cork and Cavan. This project will be subject to technical testing and validation prior to a wider release to the area. Since 25 January, retailers have been able to resell the service. Householders in these areas will be able to order high-speed broadband provided via the NBI network. The next areas in which connections will be available are Galway and Limerick. Further details on specific areas are available through the NBI website.

NBI provides the facility for the person responsible for any premises within the intervention area to register interest in being provided with deployment updates. Individuals who register with this facility will receive regular updates on progress by NBI on delivering the network and specific updates related to their premises when works are due to commence.

Broadband connection points are a key element of the national broadband plan to provide high-speed broadband in every county in advance of the roll-out of the fibre-to-the-home network. As of 11 February 2021, some 268 broadband connection point sites have been installed by NBI. The high-speed broadband service will be switched on in these locations through service provider contracts managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development for publicly available sites and by the Department of Education for schools.

An acceleration of the schools aspect of the project was announced in December. It will see 679 primary schools connected to high-speed broadband by 2022, well ahead of the original target delivery timeframe of 2026.

While substantial progress has been made to date, the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the delivery of the fibre network, resulting in delays to delivery of aspects of the programme of a number of months. The extent of this impact is currently being assessed and NBI has committed to putting in place measures to mitigate the impact insofar as is possible. The Covid-19 pandemic has also highlighted the importance of good, reliable broadband to ensure that citizens across Ireland can avail of remote working, education and other essential online facilities. This is reflected in the commitments in the programme for Government, where delivery of the National Broadband Plan will be a key enabler of many of the policies envisaged, particularly around increased levels of remote working.

The programme for Government commits to seek to accelerate the roll-out of the National Broadband Plan. In this regard, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications Networks continues to engage with NBI to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of this roll-out, in particular to establish the possibility of bringing forward premises currently scheduled for years 6 and 7 of the current plan to an earlier date. NBI has now established a dedicated team to investigate acceleration of the roll-out from its current contracted schedule of seven years. Exploring the potential to accelerate the network roll-out is being undertaken in parallel with the measures required to mitigate delays arising as a result of Covid-19, which must be the priority at this juncture.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I will detail some of the issues that have been brought up and perhaps we could get them dealt with. NBI is going to use the infrastructure of Eir and the ESB. It believes at this stage that Eir and the ESB probably need to up their capacity to be able to follow on from NBI but the relationship with Eir and ESB, NBI tell me, is actually very good at the minute. However, we are talking about survey, design and build and we are hoping that, as I think the Tánaiste said, this could be reduced from seven years to four or five, possibly.

The Safepass issue for contractor teams that need to come in must be dealt with. That is the reason some of them are not being brought in. We also need to look at the fact that if we need to bring in people from abroad it means we might be lacking skillsets here.

On tree-trimming, obviously the Minister of State herself has said that Covid has held up operations. There must be a moratorium because if this is necessary the tree-trimming required for dealing with this absolutely necessary infrastructure just needs to happen. Sometimes planning permits are required and we may need a new system, as it was put to me that the one we have is a stop-start system. If one suddenly needs to put in a new planning application because a problem has appeared with a particular pole then one must start the planning process again. With Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, that can take upwards of four to eight weeks, as I said. Even with the local authority, in a perfect situation it can be done in two days but again it can take from six to eight weeks. NBI have these guidelines that is trying to operate across the board to reduce this but we need to put in place a system that will steamline this and will operationalise it. This is probably not the forum to deal with this but if the Minister could come back to me on it, we could find a solution to streamline this. It is just too important, we need delivery and at the end of the day the Minister has responsibility.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I have listened to the points the Deputy has raised, especially on tree-trimming, Safepass issues and the others. As we all know, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of good, reliable broadband to ensure citizens across Ireland can avail of remote working. Every parent in Ireland who has home-schooled knows the importance of good broadband. We have all taken Zoom meetings at home and we have dropped off those calls every so often. Everyone realises the importance of remote working, educating and other online facilities.

It is reflected in the commitments in the programme for Government where delivery of the National Broadband Plan will be a key enabler of many of the policies envisaged, particularly around increased levels of remote working. The NBP will ensure citizens throughout the entire country have access to high-speed broadband services and that nobody is left without that vital service. Despite the impact of the pandemic, NBI continues to make steady progress on its deployment activities. As I have mentioned, more than174,000 premises across 26 counties have now been surveyed. Not unlike other large construction projects, Covid-19, as the Deputy has said, has had an impact on the delivery programme and has resulted in delays to aspects of the project. The delays NBI have had to mitigate include, among other things, mobilisation of key contractors with restrictions on operations, supply chain and logistic delays, nationally and internationally. The recruitment of key personnel, as NBI and its contractors scale up, includes challenges associated with onboarding and training people. Inevitably, like many other organisations NBI and contractor staff are at risk of contracting Covid-19 themselves or may have to restrict their movements as a result of being a close contact.

As I already mentioned, the Government has committed to seek to accelerate the roll-out of the National Broadband Plan. This includes the possibility of bringing forward premises which are currently in year six or seven to year five and exploring the potential to accelerate the network roll-out. Of the 2.4 million premises across Ireland, 77% now have access to high-speed broadband of more than 30 Mbps through commercial operators. NBI will address the remaining premises through the National Broadband Plan.

I thank Deputy Ó Murchú. I will pass on his comments to the Minister.