Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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1004. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the number of premises in respect of the monthly and milestone deployments under the Eircom commitment contract that have been served under the contract in each of the months April to June 2017, by means of EVDSL; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33718/17]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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1012. 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 on the national broadband plan; the reason some homes in areas are being connected by the company while neighbours are not; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34081/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1004 and 1012 together.

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

There has been significant progress in relation to broadband rollout so that today, approximately 1.4 m or 61% of premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband of a minimum of 30 Megabits per second. The NBP has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector, which is continuing to expand this footprint.

In April, eir signed an agreement with me committing them to follow through on their commercial plans to provide new high speed broadband infrastructure to 300,000 premises in rural areas.  eir has committed to doing this work over a 90 week period with an average of 500 premises passed per day.  A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department's website at www.dccae.gov.ie/documents/Commitment%20Agreement.pdf. The decision by eir to invest in infrastructure to deploy high speed broadband services to an additional 300,000 premises in rural Ireland was taken by eir on commercial grounds. Neither I nor the Department have a statutory authority to direct eir in this regard. 

The focus of the agreement is the delivery by eir of its commitment to roll out a high speed broadband network to over 300,000 premises. The agreement includes quarterly milestones to be achieved by eir, which are subject to formal evaluation by my Department. My Department has concluded that eir has met its target to pass 40,000 premises by the end of Quarter 1 of this year.  My Department understands that approximately 3,350 of these premises will be served by an eVDSL connection. Initial indications are that eir has also met its Quarter 2 target. A formal evaluation of eir's Quarter 2 performance will be conducted by my Department shortly.