Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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1090. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if high-speed modern broadband will become readily available in all urban and rural areas within the next five years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9761/16]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to deliver high speed services to every city, town, village and individual premises in Ireland. The Programme for a Partnership Government commits to the delivery of next generation broadband as a matter of priority.

It is expected that 70% of all premises in Ireland will receive high speed services from the commercial telecommunications market. The remaining 30% (over 750,000 premise) are the focus of a major State procurement, which formally commenced in December 2015 with the publication of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire ( 'PQQ') and Project Information Memorandum.

Five responses have been received from prospective bidders to this stage of the competitive procurement process by the deadline of 31 March 2016. The five responses are being assessed in line with the criteria set down by the Department with a view to shortlisted qualified bidders proceeding to the next stage of procurement.  

The second stage in the procurement process will be a formal invitation to Participate in Dialogue (ITPD) to shortlisted bidders. I expect that my Department will move to this stage in the next month. The third stage of the procurement process involves the issue of final tender documentation which follows the dialogue process. Following the submission of final tenders by bidders, a wining bidder will be selected for the contract which will comprise one or two lots as set out in the Intervention Strategy document. The Department will then enter into formal contract negotiations with the winning bidder(s).

The Department will engage with winning bidder(s) on the optimum rollout strategy, and on the sequencing of the network deployment to maximise efficiencies during network build, having regard to business and consumer needs, and to areas of particularly poor service and areas of strong demand. All of these factors will need to be balanced against the most efficient network rollout and will be agreed during the procurement process.

Engagement with industry stakeholders as part of the pre-procurement and consultations  has indicated that  the rollout in the State Intervention area  could be achieved within 3-5 years of the contract award, which is expected to be in mid 2017.   

Rollout will commence once the contract is in place. Based on the industry consultations, it is expected that 85% of all premises in Ireland will have access to high speed broadband within two years of the rollout commencing, with 100% being connected within 5 years or sooner.  

I am in discussion at present with Minister Heather Humphreys on the detailed arrangements to give effect to commitments in the Programme for a Partnership Government regarding her Department’s role in relation to the rollout phase of the National Broadband Plan. It is envisaged that the role will include leading on the establishment of county or regional broadband taskforces and working with local authorities, Local Enterprise Offices, LEADER Groups and other relevant agencies to help accelerate the broadband network build in rural Ireland, once a contract(s) has been awarded.