Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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In designing the National Broadband Scheme (NBS), which was approved by the EU Commission, my Department needed to strike a balance between reaching as many unserved premises as possible and minimising the impact of the scheme on businesses already providing broadband services in rural areas, thereby minimising market distortion in accordance with EU state aid rules.

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. My Department is examining how broadband could be made available to those remaining customers who for a variety of different reasons are in areas, which are not served by either the NBS or alternative coverage.