Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) is a Government initiative which aims to deliver high speed broadband to every citizen and business in Ireland. This is being achieved through a combination of accelerated commercial investment by telecoms operators, and a proposed State intervention to provide high speed broadband to those parts of the country where the commercial sector will not invest.

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 and was developed based on the most up to date information available at the time of publication. The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services by 2016. The areas marked AMBER represent those areas where the State intends to intervene to ensure those areas will have access to high speed broadband services. Members of the public should consult the map to establish for themselves whether their individual premises is included in the planned intervention or not.

My Department is currently in the process of updating the Map, taking into consideration any new information received or operator announcements made of any new plans. We expect to publish an updated version of the Map before the end of this year.

More specifically I can confirm that high speed broadband has been extended to serve 7,105 premises to date in county Longford with a further 3,786 expected to be served over the next 18 months. This coverage is referred to as "homes passed" and consumers will need to enter into a contract for service in order to activate the service. The remaining 11,691 premises in county Longford will be covered by further commercial investment or the NBP intervention.

The NBP proposed Intervention Strategy document, which was published on 15 July last, sets out a series of detailed proposals by Government in respect of the proposed State intervention. It sets out the key elements of the intervention - what services are proposed and how they will be delivered. It outlines various aspects of the proposed intervention including the type of network envisaged, the minimum speeds being demanded, the length of the contract for services, and whether the network should be public or privately owned.

The Government is determined to ensure that the network is built out as quickly as possible and engagement with industry stakeholders has indicated that this could be achieved within 3-5 years of the contract award.

In this context, the NBP proposes that through the combination of commercial investment and State intervention, 85% of addresses in Ireland will have access to high speed services by 2018 with all addresses passed by 2020.