Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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581. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his plans to have in place broadband in all parts of the State as part of the national broadband plan by the year 2023 in view of the fact Ireland may be in the position of hosting the Rugby World Cup (details supplied) in that year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39614/16]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to deliver high speed broadband services to every city, town, village and individual premises in Ireland. The Programme for Government commits to the delivery of the NBP as a matter of priority.  This is being achieved through a combination of commercial investment by the telecommunications sector and a State intervention in those areas where commercial investment has not been fully demonstrated.

A key principle of the NBP is to support and stimulate commercial investment through policy and regulatory measures. Commercial investment since the publication of the NBP has considerably exceeded expectations. To date, the commercial telecommunications sector has invested c. €2.5bn in upgrading and modernising networks which support the provision of telecoms services.

It is estimated that up to 70% or c. 1.6 m premises in Ireland will have access to commercial high speed broadband services provided by telecommunications operators, while the remaining 30% consisting of just over 750,000 premises will fall within the proposed State led intervention under the National Broadband Plan.  Currently approximately 1.4m premises in Ireland can access high speed broadband from commercial service providers.

The High Speed Broadband Map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie shows the extent of the State Intervention area: 

- The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial telecommunications providers are either currently delivering or have previously indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services.

- The areas marked AMBER on the High Speed Broadband Map represent the target areas for the State Intervention, which are the subject of the current procurement process.  

My Department is now in a formal procurement process to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network within the State Intervention Area comprising over 750,000 premises, covering 100,000km of road network and 96% of the land area of Ireland.

Intensive dialogue with bidders is continuing and the three bidders have indicated that they are proposing a predominantly fibre-to-the-home solution.  The timing of each stage of the procurement continues to be dependent on a range of factors including the complexities that may be encountered by the procurement team and bidders, during the procurement process. Bidders need adequate time to prepare detailed proposals and their final formal bids. In addition, bidders need adequate time to get the relevant shareholder and funding approvals at key stages of the process. It is also important to ensure that risks in this multi-million euro procurement are carefully managed. I do not propose to comment any further on timelines at this juncture, given that discussions are on-going in the procurement process. I can assure the Deputy, however, that the procurement process is being intensively managed, to ensure an outcome that delivers a future-proofed network that serves homes and businesses across Ireland, for at least 25 years. The Government considers the NBP to be one of the most significant investments in rural Ireland for decades, and one which will transform society, akin to rural electrification in the last century.

During the Department's extensive stakeholder consultations in 2015, telecommunications service providers indicated a 3-5 year timeline to rollout a network of the scale envisaged under the NBP. As part of the competitive process, the Department will engage with winning bidder(s) on the best rollout strategy, in order to target areas of particularly poor service, business needs and/or high demand. This will need to be balanced with the most efficient network rollout plan. A prioritisation programme will be put in place in this regard, in consultation with the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. A detailed rollout plan for the network will be published once contract(s) are in place.

The Programme for Government also commits to measures to assist in the rollout of the network once a contract is awarded. In this regard, Minister Humphreys is leading on the establishment of two regional action groups, working with Local Authorities, Local Enterprise Offices and other relevant agencies to help accelerate the broadband network build in rural Ireland, once a contract(s) has been awarded.

In a further positive initiative, last July, I established a Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce with Minister Humphreys to address immediate issues in relation to the quality of mobile phone and broadband coverage . I expect to publish the report of the Taskforce in the coming weeks. 

I recently signed Regulations allowing ComReg to proceed with an early 2017 auction of the 3.6GHz radio spectrum band, to provide an 86% increase in total spectrum available for mobile and fixed wireless services . I have also secured €8m for RTE which will allow it to free up the 700MHz spectrum band, to provide enhanced mobile services.   

These initiatives should assist in significantly improving the quality of broadband and mobile phone services across Ireland, putting Ireland to the forefront internationally in terms of connectivity, and directly benefitting major sporting events such as that referred to by the Deputy.