Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 338 to 340, inclusive, together.

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 have 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 over €2.5bn in upgrading and modernising networks which support the provision of high speed broadband and mobile telecoms services.

The State is not a service provider in the telecoms market and in line with EU State Aid guidelines and competition rules can only intervene where there is clear evidence that the commercial sector has not and will not in the future invest. 

In October 2015 the Department published the process it proposed to adopt in order to assess commercial high speed broadband investment plans and made this available on the Department’s website. Plans received from commercial operators were subsequently assessed under technical, deployment and financial criteria, in line with the EU State Aid requirements.  This resulted in the publication of the High Speed Broadband Map in December 2015.  The Map is a critical aspect of State Aid compliance and the mapping process remained open in accordance with the published terms so as to ensure that existing plans are realised and that new development can be managed.

The Department commenced the procurement process in December 2015 in respect of the Intervention Area, based on the premises in the AMBER area of the High Speed Broadband Map published by the Department in December 2015.

As the Procurement process advances, a strong focus for the Department has been on ensuring that the promised services are delivered in those areas classified as “BLUE”, which are currently outside the scope of the procurement process.  Consultation with industry has intensified since January 2016, with a view to interrogating existing BLUE areas further.

Bidders have requested certainty on the Intervention Area to allow them to develop their business cases and the Department is also of the view that greater certainty on the map is required by bidders and is critical for the procurement process.

In November 2016 my Department initiated a review of an eir proposal to rollout fibre to 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis to a proportion of the Intervention area. This analysis is now complete and on 4 April, I signed a Commitment Agreement with eir in relation to their plans to provide high speed broadband to an additional 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis.  Eir has committed to doing this work over a 90 week period, with an average of 500 premises passed per day. The rollout plan has been agreed with my Department and this along with the tight deadline will be monitored closely by my Department to ensure that eir meets their obligations under the Agreement.  A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my website www.dccae.gov.ie.  The Agreement provides that penalties of scale may be imposed on eir, in the event of failure by eir to rollout in accordance with the Commitment Agreement, so as to ensure any costs incurred by my Department are reimbursed by eir. 

On the same day I published  an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie. which finalises the State Intervention area. The updated Map shows the following categories of areas for delivery of broadband: 

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

- The AMBER areas on the High Speed Broadband Map represent the areas that will require State Intervention and are the subject of the current procurement process.

Individuals can themselves check whether their premises is in a BLUE or an AMBER area by accessing the High Speed Broadband Map and entering their Eircode at www.broadband.gov.ie

A formal procurement process is in train to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network within the State Intervention Area. 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 finalisation of the State Intervention Area for the procurement process is an important milestone as it means that bidders can progress their business plans and the Department can move to the next stage of the procurement.   

The timeframe for 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. 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 once contracts are in place.

The Programme for Government also commits to measures to assist in the rollout of the network once a contract is awarded.

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 and a prioritisation programme.

The Government remains committed to ensuring that all parts of Ireland will have at least 30Mbps connectivity, through public or private sector investment, as outlined in the National Broadband Plan.

The Government’s Capital Investment Plan published on 29 September 2015, includes an initial provision of €275m for the NBP up to 2021. The €275m represents an initial stimulus for the first five years of the NBP intervention. It is likely that a significantly higher level of funding will be required over the duration of the proposed 25 year term of the contract.  The level of exchequer funding required for the NBP will only be known after the competitive tender process has concluded and bidders provide their estimates of cost and subsidy requirements.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The table shows the number of premises covered and to be covered by the National Broadband Plan.  The NBP is made up of commercial investment and a State Intervention.The information contained in the table is derived from the data provided by commercial operators to my Department in the course of the National Broadband Plan mapping exercise.  This exercise was conducted by the Department in the period from July 2013 – April 2017.

On the 4th April 2017, I published  an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie.  The updated Map shows the following categories of areas for delivery of broadband: 

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

- The AMBER areas on the High Speed Broadband Map represent the areas that will require State Intervention and are the subject of the current procurement process.

The map provides information on a county by county basis.Individuals can themselves check whether their premises is in a BLUE or an AMBER area by accessing the High Speed Broadband Map and entering their Eircode at www.broadband.gov.ie.

The information below sets out the position at end 2016. The information in the table will be updated quarterly to reflect updates in the rollout.

County Name	Total Number of Premises	AMBER Premises Intervention Area	Blue Premises commercial operators	LIGHT BLUE   Premises Planned Commercial Rural Deployment Area *
Carlow	27,668	7,880	15,863	3,925
Cavan	42,143	17,150	17,664	7,329
Clare	68,488	23,529	31,023	13,936
Cork	267,361	74,849	167,139	25,373
Donegal	101,184	34,105	42,782	24,297
Dublin	590,076	8,701	577,905	3,470
Galway	133,963	39,335	67,633	26,995
Kerry	89,068	29,090	34,988	24,990
Kildare	89,565	13,371	67,063	9,131
Kilkenny	47,650	17,901	22,445	7,304
Laois	38,927	12,721	21,143	5,063
Leitrim	22,263	11,318	7,949	2,996
Limerick	97,173	22,105	60,036	15,032
Longford	22,414	8,288	10,287	3,839
Louth	60,085	8,755	43,618	7,712
Mayo	83,214	37,046	30,103	16,065
Meath	83,031	19,370	50,662	12,999
Monaghan	32,845	15,792	12,505	4,548
Offaly	36,737	12,420	18,166	6,151
Roscommon	39,117	18,688	12,984	7,445
Sligo	39,978	14,386	19,625	5,967
Tipperary	83,976	30,428	38,048	15,500
Waterford	61,506	16,690	38,562	6,254
Westmeath	44,369	12,019	25,664	6,686
Wexford	81,796	21,785	39,674	20,337
Wicklow	63,773	14,286	44,041	5,446
Total	2,348,370	542,008	1,517,572	288,790

There are c.2.3m  premises covering Ireland’s 26 counties, of which approximately 542,000 premises are located in the AMBER area on the Map.  These premises will require State intervention and are the focus for the procurement process which formally commenced in December 2015.  The remaining 1.8m premises are located in the BLUE areas and will be/are served by commercial operators.  Of the 1.8m premises, some 288,000 premises fall within eir’s plans to deliver rural high speed broadband between now and end 2018.  Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at .