Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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1462. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of premises and households in County Louth that have access to broadband. [38373/17]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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1463. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of premises and households in County Louth that will be covered by an agreement with a company (details supplied); and the timeframe for this process to be concluded. [38374/17]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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1464. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of premises and households in County Louth that will remain without broadband by the end of a contract with a company (details supplied); and the timeframe for these premises and households to receive broadband. [38375/17]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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1465. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when he expects the completion of the formal procurement process to select a company to roll out the broadband network within the State intervention area. [38376/17]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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1466. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when he expects the roll-out of the broadband network in the State intervention area to be completed. [38377/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1462 to 1466, inclusive, together.

The Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) will ensure high speed broadband access (minimum 30 megabits per second) to all premises in Ireland, regardless of location.  The NBP has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector so that to date approximately 1.5m or 65% of the 2.3m premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband of a minimum of 30 Megabits per second and this footprint is expanding.

In April I published an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at.  This map shows the areas targeted by commercial operators to provide high speed broadband services and the areas that will be included in the State Intervention Area. The Map is searchable by eircode. 

- The BLUE areas on the Map 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 Map represent the areas that will require State Intervention and are the subject of a procurement process.

Also in April, eir signed a 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.  

Quarterly updates on progress of the eir 300k rollout are published on my Department’s website.  The Quarter 2 2017 figures have been verified by my Department and the eir rollout is in line with the Commitment Agreement.

The Quarter 2 2017 position in relation to the County Louth is set out in the table:

A full set of county statistics are available at .

My Department is 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. That procurement process is now at an advanced stage, with “Detailed Solutions” to be submitted by bidders later this month.  

To improve both mobile and broadband services in rural Ireland in advance of the roll-out of the high speed broadband network to be built in the State intervention area, I established a task force to identify immediate solutions to mobile phone and broadband coverage deficits and investigate how better services could be provided to consumers. These solutions will enhance the existing services prior to the full build and rollout of the network planned under the National Broadband Plan State intervention.