Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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The telecommunications market in Ireland has been fully liberalised since 1999. Decisions by commercial operators to invest in particular technologies, including fixed line network technologies are taken purely on commercial grounds, having regard to the cost of service provision and the anticipated revenue returns from any such investment. Neither my Department nor the Commission for Communications Regulation, the independent market regulator, have statutory authority to oblige any particular network provider to invest in the provision of upgraded broadband services.

The State can only intervene to ensure access to broadband services in cases of clear market failure. In this regard 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. 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 areas marked BLUE represent those areas that will have access to commercial high speed broadband services.

The AMBER areas show the target areas for the State intervention and includes the area of Raheen, Caherlistrine, Co. Galway. All premises within the AMBER areas will be included in the State's intervention.

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 the end of 2016 or whether they will be included in the Government's proposed intervention.

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

Consumers can also consult the websites of the various commercial operators to ascertain details of current and planned future deployment plans.

I can confirm that next generation broadband services have been rolled out to over 45,000 premises to date in County Galway with over 26,200 more expected to be served by commercial investment. Approximately 62,500 remaining premises in County Galway will be covered by further commercial investment or be the target for the proposed State intervention under the NBP. The breakdown of premises covered, per townland, is available on the High Speed Broadband Map.

Over 40 responses were received following the publication of the NBP proposed Intervention Strategy in July last. Non-confidential versions of these submissions are being published and can be accessed at .

Meanwhile, my Department continues to review the technical and financial detail relating to potential new commercial investment proposals. I expect to proceed to formal procurement before the end of the year.

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 an ambition of 100% coverage by end of 2020.