Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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432. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources further to Parliamentary Question No. 164 of 26 June 2013, if his Department will take any specific initiatives to increase broadband availability in County Louth; and if he will provide a breakdown of the percentage of households in County Louth who currently have access to 30 MB, 70 MB or 100 MB broadband. [36085/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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As outlined in my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 164 of 26^th June last, Ireland's telecommunications market has been fully liberalised since 1999 in accordance with the requirements of binding EU Directives. Details of broadband services available in each County, including County Louth, can be found on ComReg's website at . Under EU State Aid rules, the State can only intervene to ensure access to broadband services in areas where the competitive market has failed to deliver such services. The National Broadband Scheme and the Rural Broadband Scheme are examples of two such interventions.

With basic broadband services widely available across Ireland through a combination of private investment and State interventions, the focus is now on accelerating the roll out of high speed services. The Government's National Broadband Plan, which I published in August last, aims to radically change the broadband landscape in Ireland by ensuring that high speed broadband is available to all of our citizens and businesses in advance of the EU's target date of 2020.

Since the publication of the Plan, investments by the commercial sector are underway in both fixed line and mobile high speed broadband services. In tandem with these commercial developments, intensive work is underway in my Department to progress a State-led investment to secure the countrywide introduction of next generation broadband access. The National Broadband Plan commits the Government to investing with the private sector to deliver high speed services to areas which are not commercially viable and will not be provided by the market alone.

In order to progress the State-led investment, a full procurement process must be designed and EU State Aids approval must be obtained. My officials have commenced a comprehensive mapping exercise of the current and anticipated investment by the commercial sector to identify where the market is expected to deliver high speed broadband services over the coming years. This will culminate in the development of coverage maps which will aggregate the information provided by operators. These maps will indicate the current and future availability of high speed broadband throughout the country, as well as where there are gaps. The situation pertaining to County Louth will be captured within the maps, which will be made available on my Department's website.

The results of this mapping exercise will inform the level of Government intervention that may be required and the areas that need to be targeted in the State-led investment as envisaged in the National Broadband Plan.

Intensive technical, financial and legal preparations including stakeholder engagement will be ongoing throughout 2013 with a view to the launch of a procurement process in 2014.

Through the implementation of the National Broadband Plan, we are committed to increasing the availability of next generation speeds significantly, with a view to ensuring that all citizens and businesses can participate fully in a digitally enabled society.