Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if officials from his Department have any responsibility with actions being taken regarding the extension of broadband; if he will provide an update on the areas for which they are responsible; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47226/12]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will provide an update on the matters concerning broadband provision which are administered by his Department. [44236/12]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 165 and 167 together.

In terms of telecommunications policy, my Department’s primary role is to help facilitate sustained macro-economic growth and competitiveness by ensuring that Ireland is best placed to avail of the emerging opportunities provided by the information and knowledge society. The Department exercises this role by promoting investment in modern fit-for-purpose infrastructures and by providing a supportive legislative and regulatory environment within which competition can flourish and private sector investment can take place.

Where there is evidence of a failure by the market to provide the necessary investment to enable the market to develop and services to be deployed, my Department, with my approval, may design and implement schemes to address that market failure thereby ensuring that the necessary infrastructure and services are made available to all parts of the country and to all businesses and citizens, irrespective of location. State investment in the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) and the National Broadband Scheme (NBS) are examples of recent such interventions.

With basic broadband services now widely available across Ireland, the major challenge is to accelerate the roll out of high speed services.

The National Broadband Plan, which I launched in August last, aims to radically change the broadband landscape in Ireland by ensuring that high speed services of at least 30Mbps are available to all of our citizens and businesses, well in advance of the EU’s target date of 2020, and that significantly higher speeds are available to as many homes and businesses as possible. This plan follows on from the publication of the report of the Next Generation Broadband Taskforce and a period of public consultation. Full details of these reports can be found on my Department’s website at the following link:

It is intended that the private sector will be the key driver of investment with potential State intervention only where the market is unlikely to invest.

The plan contains actions for: investment, demand stimulation, infrastructure barrier removal, spectrum policy, potential contribution of State entities, and policy and regulation.

This approach seeks to achieve a step-change in the level of services available throughout the country, by accelerating private sector investment through a range of actions by public stakeholders, and particularly with regard to rural areas where the State expects to co-invest with the private sector in areas where the commercial case for infrastructure investment does not exist.

During the preparation of the National Broadband Plan, the commercial market operators indicated that they expect to provide 70Mbps to 100Mbps services to 50% of the population by 2015. The areas to be provided with those services will be determined by the commercial market operators.

One of the first steps in delivering on the 30Mbps and 40Mbps commitments will be the completion of a formal national mapping exercise to determine the exact position in relation to commercial service providers’ existing and planned broadband services throughout the country. Preparatory work has commenced within my Department to expedite this mapping exercise.

The mapping exercise will identify the areas of the country where there is market failure in the provision of high speed broadband services. It will also identify where the market is expected to succeed and fail in the delivery of high speed broadband over the coming years. This process is expected to take at least a number of months to complete and will identify the precise areas of the country which will require State intervention to ensure that the Government’s commitment that a minimum of 30Mbps is available throughout the country is realised.