Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

67. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the status of the commitment to provide fibre broadband to every house and business in County Donegal; the deadline for this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44831/15]

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

The Government's 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.

In July last I published a detailed draft Intervention Strategy for public consultation.

That strategy proposes that the State-funded network must be capable of delivering high-quality, high speed broadband of at least 30mbps download and 6mbps upload. It must also be capable of catering for higher performance in the future so as to keep pace with consumer demand. This will be a specific requirement of the tender and it will be a matter for bidders to select the technology they consider will best deliver the service.

As I have repeatedly stated, we must observe a strict policy of technology neutrality in any procurement process and therefore I am not in a position to promise connectivity through any one particular technology platform. The Department will set out a detailed service specification, including a requirement to scale up services over the lifetime of the contract, and allow bidders show how they propose to meet these contractual requirements.

Given the quality of the services we wish to see delivered, and based on the current absence of significant fibre networks in many parts of Ireland, it is likely that fibre will play a major role in any proposed solution. However, the technology platforms that will provide the final connectivity to the premise will be a matter for commercial operators to decide on.

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.

More generally I am informed by the commercial operators that next generation broadband services have been rolled out to 21,200 premises to date in County Donegal, with a further 27,200 expected to be served by end 2016. The remaining 52,000 premises in County Donegal will be covered by commercial investment or be the target of the proposed State intervention under the National Broadband Plan. The breakdown of premises covered, per townland, is available on the High Speed Broadband Map at