Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Question 349: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will provide an update on the progress of his recent programme of installing 100 mbs broadband in schools in the west. [30918/12]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The provision of high-speed broadband to all secondary schools in Ireland is being undertaken by my Department and the Department of Education and Skills (DES), in conjunction with our network partners, HEAnet, following the successful completion of a pilot project that ran from 2009 to 2011.

The 2012 phase of the national roll-out plan aims to connect all remaining post-primary schools in the following 14 counties:

The procurement of the connections necessary to deliver the high-speed broadband for each school is proceeding under an existing Framework Agreement. The Working Group involved in running this project (comprising officials from DCENR, DES, HeaNet and the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) is currently evaluating tenders received from those companies qualified under the Framework Agreement and it is my hope that actual work on connecting the 200 schools involved in the first phase of this 3-year programme will begin this week. It is expected that all schools in this phase of the project will have their connectivity finalised by October next.