Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators for all of their contributions. I listened carefully to them and they are all valuable.

The national broadband plan is not like other national broadband plans around Europe that I have come across. I have spoken to other ministries who are trying to do something similar to what we are doing and our plan is different in two basic ways. The first is that we are trying to bring fibre to 100% of premises, that is, to every single home, farm and business. When I said that to other ministries I was told that they were not going to do that and they were going to do wireless as the other method is too expensive. Then I asked how much they were spending and, typically, €2,000 per home is what was being budgeted whereas we have budgeted €5,000. In terms of what we are trying to do, the scale and ambition is much larger but the future-proofing is much stronger. As my background is in communications technologies, I know that one should not rely on a wireless connection. I mean that it is great as a back-up but having a cable or a wire means one is set up for the future. It is good to have a duct or a pole to bring a cable into one's home, which will initially connect at 0.5 Mbps. One can easily upgrade to 20 times that speed with minimal intervention. If it is a 25-year project then we will provide a functioning broadband over 25 years to 1 million people. The sum involved is a very large amount of money but when the project will span 25 years and will reach 1 million people, then it is value for money.

A number of Senators have pointed out that the case for this project has got stronger since the contract was first negotiated. Initially, people debated whether the project was too much or necessary but now everybody can see that broadband is like running water. It is a necessary utility and it is the basic thing that one needs in order to be able to work.

Senator Garvey discussed the fact that for a long time, people wondered how could they bring jobs to rural Ireland and villages, and should a college or training place be set up. This project brings a job because it brings somebody with a job into a village. He or she can work in the village, revitalise it and make the village visibly more vibrant. Also, the technology improves quality of life. As a number of Senators have pointed out, a long commute and a very frequent long commute is closely linked with a poor quality of life and becoming increasingly more tired. To be able to escape having to do that commute every single day, Monday to Friday, is a great benefit. The recent announcement about the right to request to work from home, have a framework and then be able to bring that request to the Workplace Relations Commission, if necessary, to have a change of culture and a basic framework whereby it is expected that everybody will be able to work from home, if possible with the type of job one does, and that links in very closely with this.

I am really optimistic despite the setbacks over the start of the first year. I have been involved in many roll-out projects of different types and I am used to the idea that at the start, there is a valley of doom and that people lose faith before people begin to ramp up. The Senators will have seen for themselves the negativity that was associated, at the start of last year, with the vaccination roll-out and then the great pick up in pace. Not many people felt optimistic this time last year but people get it together.

There was an historical discussion about the contract. For example, there was a question as whether it was a good contract and should it have been done in a different way. The contract is a contract. It is a signed contract and is before my time. I have adopted it and now it is my job to make sure that it is executed, that everybody complies with its contents, that it is done on time and that all of its terms are met. That is the contract we have on both sides. We have a team of people monitoring that. We have outside consultants who are lawyers, accountants and so on. We also have our own staff who are here and are excellent. They monitor it all of the time and making sure that it gets delivered on.

It is a seven-year contract and will run from 2020 to the end of 2026. It will take seven years to deliver the service to 540,000 homes and if we can do that faster then we will. We will try to find any way that we can to accelerate delivery but for a start, we are behind at the moment and we need to get back on track. That is our initial focus.

Senator Keogan talked about the fact that only 5,400 homes have been connected when the original goal was 540,000 premises. There is a difference between the number of homes that have taken up the service and those that have it available. There are 55,000 households where one can order or preorder it but over 5,000 homes have been connected so far.

The objective is to make the service available to everybody but our target is not on uptake. The uptake has been faster than expected. Ultimately, everybody is going to need to have fast broadband and I expect that we will have a very high rate of uptake. Also, the commercial providers have all told me that they are getting much higher uptake than they expected.

There has been a change in mindset about this, as Senators will know. I am sure that they will have heard that from their constituents. People feel that it is not enough to have fibre coming to one's cabinet. People want the fibre to go into their homes because, invariably, there are two parents working, somebody is in college and people want entertainment and everything else. People really want high-quality broadband and view it as something valuable. I think that the price that has been set, at €35 a month, is absolutely worthwhile.

There was a question about the roles of NBI and Eir and how they fit together. NBI has won the contract. NBI is the organisation that will deliver this service but its supplier is Eir and Eir has to prepare the poles that the fibre is strung along. In other cases, the fibre is not strung along poles but goes into ducts underground, which Eir must provide. Eir rents the ducts and poles to NBI over a period of 25 years. There is no direct relationship between the State and Eir in that regard but Eir is a key supplier and the project cannot work without its co-operation.

There was a question about the information being given to customers and a claim that sometimes, it is not good enough. When I started off in this role one would be told on the website that the service would arrive in the next 18 months, and after that one was told that it would be some time in the future. I said that the website should tell people what it thinks it is going to be. Tell people that it is going to be 2025 and, if it changes, take people's email address at the time and update them all of the time. We want to provide people with as much information as possible. If one inputs one's Eircode on the website one will be told to the nearest year when the service will be delivered and that allows people to plan. If people cannot work from their location, they need a back-up and they need something else to fill in for that time, then people will know.

Information can always be improved and I am keen on anything that will improve information. I hope that all of the Senators have received emails with very detailed updates about everything that is happening with the project. We are very open to providing any information sought by the Senators. Mr. Fergal Mulligan is the civil servant who is in charge of the project and he is here in this room along with the assistant secretary, Mr. Ciarán Ó hÓbáin, who is seated behind me. They will arrange one-to-one meetings with any Member who wants to discuss broadband, make suggestions or identify problems. The NBI has met Senators and Deputies who wanted to meet them. I encourage Senators to get that information. I have been all around the country. I have visited as many counties as I could and I will continue to do that just to make sure that I am keeping it real, that I know what is actually happening and that I meet people who are getting connected. I see what happens on the ground.

How do we make the scheme run faster and what are the problems? As I alluded to at the start, NBI is doing this work but its key supplier is Eir and they must have a good working relationship. I have attended the last two NBI board meetings. I have facilitated a recent meeting between NBI and Eir. I know that they are constantly in contact. Eir has a new chief executive and I look forward to meeting him when he is appointed. There will be continuing engagement between them and a lot of work will go into that.

There have been questions about the local authorities granting consent. They must supply section 254 permissions in order to put in a new pole, ducts and so on. Work is being done to make sure that this process runs more smoothly. There is a mobile phone and broadband task force that had historically been set up but had lapsed. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, has reconvened that meeting. That brings together into one room the Ministers, the local authority leads and the contractors who are doing the work just to make sure that problems are smoothed out. Most counties are working very well at this stage but there is still some improvement to be obtained.

A number of councillors have referred to the benefit that can come in the form of inclusion. Every primary school and every DEIS school are going to be connected to broadband by the end of this year and that work has been accelerated. Connectivity is absolutely vital. Connection to broadband changes the whole dynamic of rural Ireland.The faster I can do that, the better. I understand completely the necessity of doing that.

Some Senators also referred to the fact that we could arrive at a point where if we have delivered 100% fibre broadband to rural Ireland, there would be people in urban areas whose quality of service would not be as good. There are black spots in certain areas. Senator Doherty referred to that. Everybody is entitled to a good service. What is the basic level of service? Senator Keogan mentioned this. There is a universal service obligation for phone services. The basic level of service for Internet connection is extremely low and dates back to dial-up times. We need a universal service obligation. At the moment, we are pointing to 30 Mb as being the basis but we are bringing in a new national digital strategy - probably next week - that will have a much higher target. There are European targets overall. We must head towards being a gigabit country with everybody connected and everybody with that right. I thank Senators for all their input. I am very happy to hear anything directly from them. If any Senator wishes to contact me or my office, I will respond.