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

The national broadband plan is the largest capital project in the State. I have the honour of being responsible for delivering it. We are connecting or passing approximately 8,000 homes per month at the moment. Half of all homes, businesses and farms in rural Ireland will have gigabit internet available by next year. The project is moving at speed. I will bring the House up to date about what is happening in County Roscommon and so on.

The State intervention element of the national broadband plan is being delivered by National Broadband Ireland, NBI, under a contract that came into effect in 2020. The contract provides for the roll-out of a high-speed and future-proof broadband network, primarily to rural areas. The intervention area will reach 1.1 million people who live and work in more than 560,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms and 679 schools. The minimum speed offered by the national broadband plan is 500 megabits. The Senator stated that the firm in County Roscommon is only able to get 10 megabits. This is 50 times faster. At the moment infrastructure works have been commenced on more than 321,900 premises and main build works have been completed on 175,600. Strategic connection points are a key element of the national broadband plan. They mean broadband is available at various hubs, such as community centres, GAA clubs or schools. At the moment there are 938 strategic connection points and of those 655 are schools. High-speed broadband services have been installed in them. The project is managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development under my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. NBI has advised that as of 23 June 2023, broadband had been installed in 655 schools by NBI and of those 441 had already been connected to retail service providers by the Department of Education and are now live.

There are 39,700 premises in County Roscommon, almost exactly half of which, or 19,300, are in the amber area of the broadband map. That means they cannot receive good quality broadband through a commercial service and the State will provide for them. The other half have broadband available through commercial providers. The Government investment in County Roscommon to improve broadband is €76 million. As of 30 June, 7,706 premises in the intervention area have been passed and are available for immediate connection. "Passed" means that fibre runs past the curb of the home. If the occupiers want to connect, it is guaranteed to take a maximum of ten days. That means 40% of homes in rural County Roscommon have high-speed broadband available to them. There are 2,218 live connections on the new fibre network in County Roscommon which means that 29% of people to whom it was offered have taken it up so far. I expect it will go up to approximately 80%. In County Roscommon all nine broadband connection points have been installed and 32 schools in Roscommon have had connections installed to date for educational access.

That outlines the State intervention. There is also commercial intervention. Three companies, namely Eir, SIRO and Virgin Media are bringing gigabit internet across the country and SIRO is providing gigabit internet services to more than 4,000 premises in County Roscommon. SIRO is a joint venture of Vodafone and ESB Networks. Virgin media is providing gigabit internet access to more than 1,000 premises and Eir is providing it to 16,000 premises. Part of the law I brought forward earlier this year, the

Communications Regulation and Digital Hub Development Agency (Amendment) Act 2023, requires universal broadband services be provided to everyone. In the same way there was a universal service obligation for land line phones, we are legislating for adequate and affordable internet for everyone. I will decide what the minimum speed is and I will require providers to ensure there are no black spots. At the rate we are going, delivery of access will be complete for rural areas before urban areas.