Written answers

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources

Broadband Service Provision

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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568. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will launch a process to measure actual provision of broadband to patients in hospitals and to publish the results. [11341/16]

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to deliver high speed access to every city, town, village and individual premises in Ireland. 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 premises) are the focus of a major State procurement process to make high speed broadband access available to all premises.

The NBP will make high speed broadband accessible at all premises. It is however for owners or occupiers to decide whether to subscribe to a broadband service at any premises. In the case of hospitals it is for each hospital operator to decide whether or not to make broadband access available to patients. It is also for each hospital operator to decide the quality of service it will make available, the platform or technologies it will use and any terms and conditions it will impose, if it is decided to provide broadband access for patients.  Where hospitals are located in cities and towns, high speed broadband should already be available, through commercial telecoms operators.

The Programme for a Partnership Government commits to the delivery of the NBP as a matter of priority. My Department’s current related priority is to complete all elements of the procurement phase of the NBP market intervention. At this time, my Department has no plans to conduct market surveys on profiles of  customers’ of broadband services providers or, in the case of hospitals,  the number of hospitals providing broadband access  to patients, the quality of service provided or the terms or conditions imposed as conditions of access. The focus currently is on ensuring that hospitals, schools, homes and enterprises have access to such services, and this is being achieved through a combination of investment by the telecoms sector, and the procurement process currently underway as part of the State Intervention.  Individual premises can be viewed by entering the relevant Eircode on the Department's High Speed Broadband Map (); this will show whether those premises will be covered by commercial telecoms investment or by the State intervention.

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