Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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523. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of houses in County Donegal that have been connected to high speed broadband by the end of July 2017; the number of households that will be connected by the end of 2018; his plans for connecting all other households in County Donegal; the timeframe for same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42857/17]

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, where providers acting alone will not provide this essential service. aThe 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. This footprint is continuing to expand and it is expected to rise to 77% by the end of 2018.By 2020, 90% of premises In Ireland will have access high speed broadband.

In April, eir signed a Commitment 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; decisions as to when areas and premises are served, is an operational matter for eir.  A copy of the Agreement is available on my Department's websitewww.dccae.gov.ie

Quarterly updates on progress of the eir 300k rollout are also published on my Department’s website.  eir has confirmed to my Department that 100,000 premises have been passed as at the end of September 2017.  The 300,000 figure includes 25,586 premises in County Donegal.eir has passed 9,075 premises in the county to date.  eir will continue to rollout high speed broadband to the remaining 16,511 premises as part of this Agreement between now and the end of 2018.Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at  .  

In April I published an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie.This map finalises the State Intervention Area for the procurement process and is an important milestone in the procurement process. The Map shows the extent of  the State Intervention area and also the areas targeted for commercial services.  The Map, which is searchable by address or eircode, will be updated to show quarterly progress of the eir roll-out.  

- 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 shows that there are over 101,000 premises in County Donegal of which about 68,000 premises  including the aforementioned 16,511 premises that form part of eir's planned commercial rural deployment, fall within a BLUE area of the Map and will be covered by commercial operators.  The remaining c.33,000 premises in County Donegal fall within an AMBER area and will be part of the State led Intervention under the National Broadband Plan.

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 process was reached in September with the submission of "Detailed Solutions" by two bidders, This is the last stage 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 roll-out of the high speed broadband network to be built in the State intervention area I established, in July 2016, a Task force to identify solutions which can be implemented in the short, medium and long term to alleviate mobile phone and broadband coverage deficits, to identify priority areas for roll-out and investigate how better services could be provided to consumers. These solutions will enhance the existing services prior to the full build and roll-out of the network planned under the NBP State led intervention.

Under this Task force, engagement between telecommunications operators and local authorities through the Broadband Officers is continuing to strengthen.  These Broadband Officers are acting as single points of contact in local authorities for their communities.  The appointment of these officers is already reaping rewards in terms of ensuring a much greater degree of consistency in engagements with operators and clearing obstacles to developing infrastructure.  There is a link to a list of these local Broadband Officers on my Department's website.