Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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60. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the status of the roll-out by a company (details supplied) of high fibre broadband to areas marked light blue in the national broadband plan; the amount of interaction between the company and his Department regarding the roll-out; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29795/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to deliver high speed broadband services to all premises in Ireland. The Programme for Government commits to the delivery of the NBP as a 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.

  The NBP has catalysed Commercial investment. 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.  As a result approximately 1.4m or 61% of premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband of a minimum of 30 Megabits per second.

In accordance with procedures set out by my Department in December 2015, in late 2016 my Department initiated a review of an eir proposal to rollout fibre to over 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis.  These premises were in areas that had formed part of the procurement process for the NBP State Intervention area. On 4 April, I signed a commitment agreement with eir in relation to those plans.  Eir has committed to completing the rollout over a 90 week period, an average of 500 premises passed per day.   

In line with the terms of the Commitment Agreement, the Department meets with eir each month to review their monthly report and to allow them set out progress against each project deliverable.  The Department has also undertaken a field inspection to witness the fibre optical cabling and splicing activities being carried out as part of the 300,000 deployment.  The Department also holds a Quarterly review with eir where the performance of their obligations under the Commitment Agreement is presented and discussed.  To date eir have achieved the aggregate milestones under the Agreement.  The next milestone is due at the end of June. 

A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department's website.  Quarterly updates will also be published on the Departments website.  My Department has informed me that in the period from 1 January to end March 2017, over 30,000 premises were passed by eir.  As at end of Q1 2017, this brings the total number of the 300,000 premises passed to just over 40,000 premises since work commenced in 2016.