Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

318. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the budget that has been proposed to implement the intervention strategy as part of the national broadband plan. [29270/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) 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 proposed State intervention under the NBP represents a potentially very significant capital investment project for the State and the Government is firmly committed to delivering this investment, as evidenced in the National Broadband Plan itself and in the Programme for Government, the Action Plan for Jobs and the Statement of Government Priorities.

The commercial telecommunications sector is currently investing approximately €2.5 billion in network upgrades and enhanced services. 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 shows Ireland with two colours, BLUE and AMBER. The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers plan to deliver high speed broadband services. The AMBER areas on the map show the target areas for the State intervention.

It is anticipated that speeds of at least 30Mbps will be delivered through the Government's intervention and the network will be designed to cater for future increased demand from consumers and business.

Under EU State Aid rules, public investment in a commercial market has to be targeted at areas where there is evidence of market failure. Therefore, the Government's proposed investment under the NBP will apply to those parts of the country that are unlikely to be served commercially.

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.

l published the draft Intervention Strategy for public consultation today and the draft strategy and relevant expert reports are available on the NBP website . Following the consultation process over the 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 national infrastructure project will definitively address the long-standing challenge of deploying a resilient and high-quality broadband network in rural parts of Ireland.