Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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495. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the timeframe for broadband services to be available under the national broadband scheme at Gillstown, Garlow Cross, Navan, County Meath. [41407/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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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 and this footprint is expanding. In April I published an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie. 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.

The map shows that 100% of the townland of Gillstown, Co Meath is within the AMBER area and will be covered by the State intervention under the NBP. The eircode of the premise will indicate whether the premise will be covered commercially or be part of the State led Intervention.  Individuals can access the High Speed Broadband Mapwww.broadband.gov.ieusing their eircode to ascertain the colour code (BLUE or AMBER) status for their premise.

My Department is engaged in an on-going procurement process to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network for the State led intervention. A significant milestone in that procurement process was reached last week with the submission of "Detailed Solutions" by two bidders, This is the last stage of the procurement process before receipt of final tenders and ultimate progression to the appointment of a preferred bidder(s).

To improve both mobile and broadband services in rural Ireland in advance of the rollout of the high speed broadband network to be built in the State intervention area, I established a Taskforce 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.