Results 4,421-4,440 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: National Broadband Plan Administration (22 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: Under EU State Aid guidelines, it is a requirement that Member States thoroughly evaluate commercial plans so as to ensure that State Aid is confined to areas of well-defined market failure, where commercial investment is unlikely to occur in the near future. My Department recently consulted publicly to close the National Broadband Plan ongoing mapping exercise, seeking submissions from...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: National Broadband Plan Administration (22 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: Following the settlement reached between the independent regulator ComReg and Sky Ireland Limited (“Sky”) in respect of proceedings related to aspects of ComReg Decision D10/18, I understand that ComReg has confirmed that it plans to publish (Q1 2020) a consultation that will, inter-alia, address the design and costs associated with the provision of fibre access network, and...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: National Broadband Plan Implementation (22 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: Every home, farm, school and business in Ireland will have access to high speed broadband – no matter where they are located – following the Government’s decision to approve the appointment of a preferred bidder to the National Broadband Plan. Under this plan, Ireland will become one of the first countries in the world to ensure that those in rural areas have the same...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: National Broadband Plan Administration (22 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: Since the Government decision in May to appoint NBI as the Preferred Bidder for the National Broadband Plan contract, work has continued on the due diligence necessary to conclude the contract. This process is progressing towards contract award, which is expected before the end of the year. The Bidder will commence the deployment of the network shortly after that. The Bidder has indicated...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Environmental Protection Agency Remit (22 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: The judgment of 20 September 2019 referred to by the Deputy set aside both S.I. No. 4 of 2019 and S.I. No. 12 of 2019, which were enacted by my Department and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government respectively, and which jointly sought to make the Environmental Protection Agency the single competent authority for peat extraction over 30 hectares in Ireland. Both...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Litter Pollution (22 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: The Local Authority Anti-Litter and Anti-Graffiti Awareness Grant Scheme (ALAGS) aims to assist local authorities in their efforts to raise awareness of the litter and graffiti problems in their respective functional areas. Local Authorities are responsible for selecting suitable anti-litter awareness projects for funding and deciding on the grant allocations in individual cases. These...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: I am glad to say that, in the 2020 budget, we doubled the provision for the warmer homes scheme compared with the 2019 provision. It is the scheme that provides 100% retrofitting free of charge-----

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: -----to people who are on the fuel scheme, including pensioners and those on social welfare payments long term who earn less than €100 per week in addition to their pensions and social welfare payments. We also assigned €20 million to the roll-out of a new aggregated model. This is the first test of a new approach. It will be piloted in the midlands and build on a core of...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: -----it to a wider range of homes that can participate under-----

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: They are grant schemes. They will be supported and will use a suite a measures. We are moving towards an aggregated model that will offer easier pay. The current grant scheme, approximately 30% of which applies to those who are not eligible for the warmer homes scheme, will continue.

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: The Deputy will be aware that retrofitting will be a major part of the journey. We need to see a tenfold increase in the scale of retrofitting by 2030. Obviously, Professor FitzGerald is indicating we need to go beyond that. That will represent less than 1% of GDP, large and all as it is. Therefore, we will be able to accommodate what is proposed. The approach the Government is taking is...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Electric Vehicle Grants (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: The electric vehicle purchase grant provides grant aid of up to €5,000 towards the purchase of a new battery electric vehicle or new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. From the introduction of the scheme to the end of September 2019, grant support has been provided for the purchase of a total of 8,450 new vehicles to the value of almost €39 million. To date this year, over...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Broadband Service Provision (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: The Government appointed National Broadband Ireland as the Preferred Bidder for the National Broadband Plan in May. This followed a tender process designed to ensure that every home and business throughout the country will have access to future proofed high speed broadband and will cater specifically to an estimated 1.1 million people, representing almost 25% of the population of rural...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: National Broadband Plan Administration (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: My Department recently consulted publicly to close the ongoing mapping exercise, seeking submissions from operators who wish to have their existing high speed broadband networks, or who have developed plans to invest in high speed broadband networks over the next 7 years, to be included on the Department’s High Speed Broadband Map. In response to requests from a number of operators,...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: National Broadband Plan Data (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: The overall NBP procurement process is supported by a specialist team including external expertise and advisors who were appointed by competitive tender processes since the launch of the NBP in 2012. These include a range of national and international experts with commercial, economic, environmental, financial, insurance, legal, procurement, state aid, tax and technical expertise and...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Capital Expenditure Programme (17 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: I propose to take Questions Nos. 259 and 260 together. My Department does not have any capital projects that have cost €100 million or more in the past 5 years. My Department has one capital project that is anticipated to commence in the next five years that is expected to cost over €100 million, the National Broadband Plan. The Department is commencing a procurement process...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Electricity Generation (16 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: I thank the Deputies for their questions. I have attempted to be as straight as possible with everyone. I have met all of the bodies involved. I have also been straight on the question of judicial review. It would require a failure of procedure. It is different from considering whether a fresh planning application could succeed. The issue being evaluated by the ESB is whether a fresh...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Electricity Generation (16 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: I am very conscious that these are independent commercial bodies and I do not direct them to do various things. They have responsibilities to their workers and stakeholders and to financial soundness. Of course, they continue to work with one another to secure a strong commercial relationship. In addition, I recognise that for seasonal workers we need to anticipate accelerated work on the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Broadband Plan Implementation (16 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: I thank the Deputy for raising the question. We did have some discussion of this earlier in the session. Essentially, the timeline for the national broadband plan is to complete all processes before the end of the year. As I outlined to Deputy Dooley, as part of that process we have had a new mapping exercise whereby anyone who wanted to provide a service on a commercial basis within the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Broadband Plan Implementation (16 Oct 2019)

Richard Bruton: I can understand the Deputy's concern that this has taken considerable time. The truth is that without the intervention we have proposed, the constituents the Deputy represents would never be reached. We know the commercial system would not deliver reliable high-speed, future-proofed broadband to almost a quarter of the country. That is the reason we have this scheme in place. Unlike the...