Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the position regarding the 3 network in an area (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54081/12]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I wish to advise that my Department’s officials have been engaged in ongoing contact with “3”, the National Broadband Scheme (“NBS”) service provider since it was made aware of recent service performance problems being experienced by some NBS customers in Co. Kerry. I understand that these NBS customers in the Ballyferriter area experienced intermittent service loss and degradation of service over a protracted length of time. “3” have advised my officials that service problems arose last month on two sites, at Ballydavid and Ventry and that these problems have been rectified with the sites being fully operational since 27 November last. “3” continue to monitor these sites very closely. Throughout the period, those customers whose service was affected were advised of the position via text message from 3’s customer care centre.

The contract which my Department has in place with “3” provides for the monitoring of service availability. It provides for the payment of service performance rebates where service performance does not meet the minimum specified service levels and where service restoration is delayed beyond the target 5 working days. My Department operates a dedicated mailbox, nationalbroadbandscheme@dcenr.gov.ie, which NBS customers can contact with relevant details where they consider that their service performance issues have not been resolved to their satisfaction by 3’s customer care centre. I wish to advise the Deputy that service rebates will be applied to the accounts of all those customers whose service has been affected by these site outages.