Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 38: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his plans to extend and improve broadband availability to the standards applicable throughout the Eurozone; if he has had further discussions with the service providers, the Regulator or others in regard to the need to meet international standards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23144/07]

Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 64: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the reason for the delay in the nationwide roll out of wired broadband to rural Ireland; Ireland's present rating in international standards of wired broadband availability; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22683/07]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 38 and 64 together.

The provision of telecommunications services, including wired broadband, is a matter for the service providers that provide wired broadband services. Broadband service providers operate in a fully liberalised market, regulated, where appropriate, by the independent Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg. Difficulties surrounding the roll out of wired broadband services are a matter for Service Providers.

The role of the Government is to formulate regulatory and infrastructure policies to facilitate the provision of high quality telecommunications services, by competing private sector service providers.

The widespread provision of broadband services continues to be a priority for the Government. In that regard my Department has undertaken initiatives to address the gaps in broadband coverage. These include providing grant-aid under the recently concluded Group Broadband Scheme and investment in Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs).

There are still some parts of the country where the private sector will be unable to justify the commercial provision of broadband services. Accordingly, the procurement process for a National Broadband Scheme (NBS) is under way. The NBS will provide broadband services to areas that are currently unserved and will ensure that all reasonable requests for broadband in unserved areas are met.

The first phase of the procurement process, the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) phase, is now complete and four candidates have pre-qualified. As my Department indicated on 2 September 2007, the four candidates are, in alphabetical order, BT Communications Ireland Ltd Consortium, eircom Ltd, Hutchinson 3G Ireland Ltd and IFA/Motorola Consortium. The next phase of the procurement process involves inviting candidates to participate in a competitive dialogue process. My Department is anticipating that the award of the NBS contract will be Quarter 2 of 2008, with rollout of the services due to begin as soon as possible thereafter. This timeline is subject to negotiations with candidates during the competitive dialogue phase of the procurement process. There were 698,000 broadband subscribers in Ireland at end of quarter two of 2007 according to official figures from ComReg. This is equivalent to 16.48% of the population. At the start of 2005 only 3% of population had broadband and 6.76% of the population at the start of 2006.

Ireland has narrowed the gap behind the EU average dramatically. At the end of Q2 06 the EU-25 average was 14% and our rate was 8%. At the end of Q2 07, the EU-25 Average was 18.2% and our rate was at 16.48%. According to the latest OECD Broadband Statistics (end-Dec 2006), the strongest per-capita subscriber growth over the year came from Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Ireland. Each country added more than 5.8 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during 2006.