Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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80. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will provide a progress report on the roll-out of the national broadband plan in County Cork from 1 January 2022 to 30 November 2022; the number of premises connected during this timeframe, including schools and broadband connection points in the county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62537/22]

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Will the Minister provide a progress report on the roll-out of the national broadband plan in County Cork from 1 January 2022 to 30 November 2022, the number of premises connected during this timeframe, including schools and broadband connection points in the county and will he make a statement on the matter?

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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There are 81,507 premises located in County Cork that will be passed by National Broadband Ireland, NBI, with high-speed gigabit fibre broadband as part of the State intervention under the national broadband plan, NBP. NBI has advised that 15,711 premises in Cork are passed by the NBP high-speed fibre broadband network and are available for immediate connection. Some 11,196 premises were passed in Cork in 2022 to date and 4,091 premises in Cork have been connected to date with 2,989 of those connected in 2022.

Strategic connection points, SCPs, are a key element of the NBP providing high-speed broadband in every county in advance of the roll-out of the fibre to the home network. As of 2 December 2022, a total of 823 SCP sites, including 280 broadband connection points, BCPs, which are publicly accessible sites, and 543 schools, have been installed and 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 BCPs and the Department of Education for school SCPs. Further details are available on the NBI website.

In County Cork, 24 BCPs have been installed to date, of which two were installed in 2022, and 85 school BCPs have been installed to date for educational access, of which 55 schools were installed in 2022. My Department continues to work with the Department of Education to prioritise schools without high-speed broadband that are within the intervention area.

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Does the Minister of State know the number of schools outstanding that have yet to be connected? I am coming across a lot of problems in County Cork where there are properties that Eir has the capacity to connect, but is not allowed to because they are in the amber area. Has there been any progress with Eir on that issue? For example, in one case the pole that provides the connection is at the entrance to a farm yard. The farm house could not be connected, yet a house 200 yards down the road could be connected. Four other houses in the area could not be connected because they were within the amber area. What engagement has there been with Eir? We could connect a huge number of additional houses in a very short timeframe. The infrastructure is there but because properties are in the amber area, Eir is not allowed to connect them.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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How far behind target, whether in Cork or nationally, is the NBI roll-out? That is the critical question everyone is asking. Second, when is the roll-out now expected to be complete for the last house in the last valley? That is another question people are asking.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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The first question is on how many schools have not been connected. I do not have this data to hand but the final schools to be connected across the entire country are to be completed by June 2023.

The next question was on the number of homes that Eir will not connect, because they are in the intervention area, or is "not allowed to" connect as the Deputy said. Eir can connect a home anywhere in Ireland if it wants to. The provider is not excluded from providing broadband in rural areas and it does so in many cases, and we have double fibre connections going into homes where it is easy for Eir to do so. Therefore, Eir is not prevented from doing that. Let us consider a person on the border of intervention and non-intervention areas. I understand that people on the edge of the area may feel frustrated if they do not have broadband but the person next door has. In the same way, the person next door may be in County Tipperary and you may be in County Cork and you cannot play for the other person's team. That is the nature of deployment areas.

The next question was on how engagement with Eir works. I meet with Eir extremely regularly. I met with representatives this and last week. I am constantly meeting with all the industry players, including NBI and, in fact, with every broadband company and mobile operator in the country.

Deputy Ó Cuív asked where we are on targets. We met the target for this year two months ahead of schedule. We had a target of 102,000 that was to be met by the end of January 2023 but was met by 1 December 2022. It is a seven-year project that started in 2020 and will be complete by the end of 2026. It has doubled the deployment speed this year compared to last year, in other words the number of homes being passed. It will complete on time and according to budget.

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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I refer to engagement with Eir. I understand when a property is in the amber area, Eir will not engage. It is saying it is being prevented from engaging because it will not get the same remuneration as the contractor doing the national broadband roll-out. That is the reason Eir will not connect properties in the amber area. As we are behind to a large extent in real terms, can we not fast-track the properties on the borderline areas?

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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There is a financial disincentive to connect within a rural area for a commercial operator. It is because it has to compete with a State-subsidised provider. National Broadband Ireland has to provide 25 years of fibre broadband to people for the same price in a rural area as it would cost them in an urban area and we have State-aid approval from the EU to do that because of the market failure in those areas. It can be difficult for commercial suppliers to compete in such areas because they are competing against a provider that is State subsidised. It does occur particularly at the edges of urban area that is just as easy for commercial suppliers, such as Eir, Virgin Media, or SIRO, to deploy fibre. There are two options then for the customer which is great as they have double approval.

I would need to engage further with the Deputy to understand better exactly what is the issue. I regularly meet with all the players in the industry and I am happy to talk the Deputy. We also have the mobile phone and broadband task force, which meets will all parts of the Government, local authorities, the Department of Rural and Community Development etc. I am happy to meet with the Deputy to try to better understand the issue.