David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Question 51: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if the rollout of broadband under the national broadband scheme is on target to be 50% completed by September 2009 and fully completed by the end of 2010; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24032/09]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 54: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the position regarding the national broadband scheme; if this scheme is on target; the way broadband will be provided to the areas which are not covered by the NBS map but who do not have broadband; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24071/09]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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I propose to take Question Nos. 51 and 54 together.

My Department entered into a contract with "3", a Hutchison Whampoa company, for the delivery of the National Broadband Scheme (NBS) in late December 2008. 3 is required to provide services to all fixed residences and businesses that are located within the NBS Coverage Area and who seek a service.

To this end, challenging programme roll-out targets have been agreed with 3 and initial NBS services were launched in a small number of rural areas at the end of April this year. Broadband coverage in individual electoral divisions (EDs) will be made available incrementally during the coming months. The forthcoming availability of services to premises located within identified EDs will be announced progressively prior to their enablement on 3's coverage map which can be accessed on its website at www.three.ie/nbs.

48% of the EDs in the NBS Coverage Area are required to be enabled by the end of December 2009, while all of the EDs in the NBS Coverage Area are required to be enabled by the end of September 2010. My Department is informed by 3 that these targets will be achieved. My Department will be intensively monitoring the situation in this regard.

As regards the exclusion of certain unserved premises from the NBS, it is important to clarify that, in designing the NBS, which was approved by the EU Commission, a balance had to be struck between reaching as many unserved areas as possible and minimising the impact of the scheme on businesses already providing broadband services in rural areas.

EU state aid and competition rules govern how States can intervene in areas where there are existing service providers. The nature of broadband networks is such that they provide a coverage footprint over a certain area rather than an individual link to isolated premises. It was essential to guard against the NBS coverage footprint spilling over to an extent which would be unacceptable from a state aids perspective, onto surrounding areas already served by existing service providers.

Accordingly, to try to include individually unserved premises that are located within EDs deemed to be already served within the scope of the NBS would have given rise to an unacceptable level of market distortion and therefore, such areas had to be excluded.

It is expected that over time, as competition increases and technology develops, service providers will be attracted to offer service to any such premises located within currently served areas.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Question 52: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the number of schools which have high speed broadband; the number of schools in the broadband for schools initiative which have satellite internet, fibre, DSL and wireless; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24065/09]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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The Schools Broadband Access Programme, administered by the Department of Education and Science, has three elements - local connectivity to schools, a national broadband network and a broadband support service desk. Schools' connectivity is being routed to the Internet through a national broadband network, which is supported by HEAnet and provides centrally managed services for schools such as security, anti-spam/ anti-virus and content filtering.

3,905 schools have been provided with broadband connectivity under the Schools Broadband Access Programme. Of these, 1,250 (32%) have fixed line services, 1,015 (26%) have wireless services and 1,640 (42%) have satellite services. A further 72 schools have had broadband access provided under the Hermes and Advanced Deployment Programmes and are not included in the 3,905 schools. The split of technology services across these 72 schools is: 43 fixed line services, 25 wireless technologies and 4 satellite services.

In addition, the Department has migrated schools to superior alternative technologies, where feasible. The Department is currently evaluating tenders received for the next phase of the programme.

The 100mbps to post-primary schools project will involve an initial pilot project in 2009 to guide its wider roll out. The procurement process for the pilot project will commence this month.