Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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62. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of the roll-out of the national broadband plan; the number of premises that have been passed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45632/22]

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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What is the status of the roll-out of the national broadband plan and what is the number of premises that have been passed? Are we are likely to make the target of 102,000 premises, realising we are much behind where we thought we would have been? In further questioning I will speak about acceleration.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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We are ahead of where we expected to be at the start of the year when we were planning in February. Survey and design work for the new high-speed fibre broadband network under the national broadband plan is complete or ongoing by National Broadband Ireland, NBI, in every county in Ireland. I am advised by NBI that, as of 9 September 2022, more than 331,000 premises are design completed and more than 88,000 premises can order or preorder a high-speed broadband connection. NBI has further advised that more than 75,000 premises across 23 counties have been passed with a high-speed fibre broadband service and are available for immediate connection. Construction is under way across 26 counties, demonstrating that the project is reaching scale. The level of connections is increasing daily and is in line with or exceeding projections from earlier this year.

The Department has worked with NBI to agree an updated interim remedial plan, which recalibrated the targets for 2022 to take account of the knock-on effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and other delays to the programme. The revised target is 102;000 premises to be passed by the end of January 2023.

NBI is implementing a number of measures to help lessen the impact that delays have had on the roll-out. Those measures include increasing the rate of pole replacement and duct remediation per month; bringing in additional NBI resources; earlier procurement of materials used in the build stages and bringing in additional subcontractors. The focus will continue to be on ensuring that the NBI build programme is back on track and is gaining momentum month on month.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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We all get the importance of remote working, especially in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, where it may be beneficial for people to reduce the amount of commuting they are doing - for multiple reasons at this stage. Those figures are definitely heading in a better direction than they have been. We just need to ensure that it is acceleration, acceleration, acceleration. I know that NBI has spoken about its need to either increase the amount of Eir make-ready products that they can use or that they would be able to use - what they have called a self-install product - which would enable it to finish more of this infrastructure. I ask for an update on that. We, at one stage, talked about acceleration from the point of view of this seven-year project becoming a five-year project. I think we are now talking about seven years becoming six years. The big question is about where we are on that.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I regularly meet with Eir, NBI, the contractors who do the work and everybody in between to make sure that the project is still running. I have met with the new chief executive of Eir and I am convinced that he will continue to improve the roll-out of this system. Deputy Ó Murchú mentioned Eir make-ready which is the preparatory work that Eir does in the year before it hands over the poles and ducts to NBI for its design work. At this stage, the bottleneck is not with NBI anymore, but with Eir. The availability of new connections is not constrained by NBI's work. It has now reached the speed where it is delivering as much as Eir can give it. I have asked Eir to prepare more of its network at a higher rate.

At the same time, Eir is delivering in the commercial area and has much of its staff deployed to bring fibre broadband to areas outside of the intervention area, along with two other companies, Virgin Media and SIRO. If the Deputy looks at the ComReg statistics, he will see there are 10,000 fibre connections in Ireland per month. Those are not homes being passed. They are connections to people's houses.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the fact that the Minister of State has an interaction with Eir from the point of view of delivering more at its end and the fact that NBI obviously has a serious capacity but, at the end of the day, this is all about ensuring that we accelerate this as much as possible, especially to reach areas that have been and will be waiting for broadband for a considerable length of time. When is Eir to come back to the Minister of State with a plan with regard to producing more of the Eir make-ready product? What is the status on NBI doing some of those works with the self-install product it is talking about? Does the Minister of State have any updates on where the targets for the coming years stand? When will we get that finalised plan for sixth-year accelerated delivery?

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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What does the Minister of State say to people in Mayo who, when they key in their postcode, find that they will get broadband in 2025 and 2026? What does he say to the people who key in their postcode and are excluded, because they are deemed to have a service, when they cannot do the very basics in downloading and uploading? Is he concerned that we have not future-proofed this plan and that 30 Mbps is not sufficient because of all the transactions and everything else that are necessary now and in the future of our broadband?

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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How many connections have been made to date under the national broadband plan? What are the projections under the national broadband plan per month? The Minister of State has given us the connections on the commercial side. Does he agree that there is sometimes confusion when somebody in one house, who is not in the commercial area, can get a connection and the next-door neighbour outside the area cannot? Does he have any way of resolving that?

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I will start with Deputy Ó Murchú. By the end of this year, we will have agreed with NBI what its target is for next year. Some 102,000 is our target for January of next year and we will have agreed a new achievable target by the end of the year. That will involve working with Eir on their make-ready plans. The existing contract is for a seven-year roll out which completes by 2026. If we can do it faster, we will. Our focus in the past year has been on getting it back on track. We are now delivering the right number that we expected and are moving at scale. If we can do it faster, we will.

At the same time, I need to look at urban black spots and any areas that are not being met. I know there are 8,750 premises to be passed in Deputy Ó Murchú's county, Louth. Of those, 3,200 have been passed and more than 1,000 of those have connected. They only represent a small proportion because most of the homes in Louth will be connected by commercial operators.

Deputy Conway-Walsh asked about people in Mayo who would not be connected until 2026. When one has a seven-year project, that means some people are in years 6 and 7 and are very disappointed to see that. Unless we accelerate the project, it is very difficult to do better. However, it is better to give people that information in order that they can plan, and be honest with them and not promise them that it will be some time in the future, in order that people do know. There are broadband connection points and people can use hubs in community centres. All of the schools in Ireland will be connected in Ireland by the end of the year.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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We are over time.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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With regard to the people who have 30 Mbps and are regarded to be good enough, the national target has not been agreed, but it is likely to that everybody will have gigabit Internet by the end of 2028.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I know it is impossible to answer all of this in one minute. Additional speakers come in and it still has to be answered in one minute.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I understand.