Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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846. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his plans regarding the provision of high-speed broadband in the Cork region; if he will address the concerns raised by an organisation (details supplied) in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23745/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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The National Broadband Plan aims to ensure that every citizen and business, regardless of location, has access to a high quality, high speed broadband service. This will be achieved through a combination of commercial investments and a State led intervention in areas where commercial services will not be provided.The commercial telecommunications sector is currently investing approximately €2.5 billion in network upgrades and enhanced services with approximately 1.6 million of the 2.3 million premises in Ireland expected to have access to commercial high speed broadband services over the next 18 months. These very significant investments represent a step-change in the quality of broadband services available.

Last November I published a national high speed coverage map for 2016. This map is available at . The map allows all members of the public, be they business or residential, to see whether their premises or home will have access to commercial high speed broadband services by end 2016 or whether they will be included in the Government's proposed intervention. It also provides detailed information on over 50,000 townlands throughout the entire country including Co Cork.

The areas marked BLUE represent those areas that will have access to commercial high speed broadband services by end 2016.

The AMBER area shows the target areas for the State intervention. All premises within the AMBER areas will be included in the State's intervention.

eircom recently announced an investment that may address a further 300,000 premises with fibre-to-the-premises technology. My Department will be rigorously examining the assurances from eircom in relation to these new plans, which is a requirement for all operators, and will review how this impacts the proposed intervention area.

More generally I can confirm that next generation broadband services have been rolled out to 126,118 premises to date in Co Cork with a further 55,664 expected to be served over the next 18 months. The remaining 85,972 premises in Co Cork will be covered by commercial investment or be the target for the proposed State intervention under the National Broadband Plan.

Intensive design and planning work is underway in my Department to produce a detailed intervention strategy for the AMBER area. Following a public consultation process on the draft Intervention Strategy this summer, I hope to move to formal procurement phase towards the end of this year in order to select a preferred bidder or bidders.

I expect the physical build of the network to begin in late 2016, and it will take 3-5 years to fully complete – depending on the details of the bid or bids selected.

This complex and ambitious project is a key priority for Government and aims to conclusively address current broadband connectivity issues in Ireland, including the important enterprise issues identified by IBEC.