Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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15. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht her role in rolling out broadband to rural communities; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19853/16]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The National Broadband Plan aims to conclusively address Ireland’s connectivity challenges, by ensuring that every premises in the country has access to high speed broadband services. This is being achieved through measures to incentivise and accelerate industry investment, and an ambitious investment programme by the State, in areas where industry will not invest.

The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources’s Department is responsible for advancing the procurement process to select a winning bidder or bidders for the contract, which will comprise one or two lots, as set out in the national broadband plan intervention strategy. It is expected that a contract or contracts will be awarded by June 2017.

The Programme for a Partnership Governmentcommits to measures to assist in the roll-out of the rural broadband network once a contract is awarded. In this regard, I will establish a number of local/regional broadband taskforces, working with Local Authorities, Local Enterprise Offices, LEADER Groups and other relevant agencies. The taskforces will help accelerate the broadband network build in rural Ireland, by ensuring that there are no local barriers to deployment and by identifying priority areas for rollout. To this end, they will also develop Rural Digital Strategies, which will include proposals for regional digital hubs.

I will also meet with each Local Authority Chief Executive over the coming period to reinforce the importance of the rollout of broadband. I will be asking them to prioritise actions to overcome any possible barriers and to ensure there will be no unnecessary delays to the rollout of this vital infrastructure to rural communities.