Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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236. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of the fibre roll-out programme in rural townlands that are outside fibre serviced towns, specifically Bolart, Kilmanaghan, Ballyboughlin, Cloughtanny, Ballycumber, Kilfoylan, Tubber, Kilcurley, Tinamuck and Boher, County Offaly; if fibre will be delivered to these areas; and the date on which it will be delivered. [45508/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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In April of this year, I published an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie.  The 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 under the National Broadband Plan (NBP).  The Map is colour coded AMBER for areas to be covered by the State led Intervention under the NBP and BLUE for areas where commercial operators are delivering or have indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services.  Light BLUE areas on the Map represent eir's commercial rural deployment plans to roll-out high speed broadband to 300,000 premises by the end of 2018 as part of an Agreement signed with me in April last. The Map is searchable by eircode.

The map shows that 100% of the townlands of Bolart North, Bolart South, Kilmanaghan,  Ballyboughlin, Tinamuck East, Tinamuck South and Tinamuck North County Offaly fall exclusively within the areas of the State led Intervention under the NBP. 

The remaining townlands Cloughtanny, Ballycumber, Kilfoylan, Tober (Tubber), Kilcurley and Botharfadda (Boher) comprise a mix of premises to be covered by either eir's plans to provide a new high speed broadband infrastructure to 300,000 premises, or the State led intervention under the NBP and are colour coded accordingly.  eir has confirmed to my Department that 101,000 premises have been passed as at the end of September 2017 .  eir will continue to roll-out high speed broadband between now and the end of 2018 to the remaining premises including those premises that fall within the said townlands.  Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at  http://fibrerollout.ie/eircode-lookup/  

Customers seeking connectivity to eir's network should, in the first instance,  access this website to determine the connectivity availability status for their eircode.  The website also provides a list of retail service providers who offer services using high speed fibre network in the area.

With regard to the State led Intervention, 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. A significant milestone in that procurement process was reached last month 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).  My Department will engage with the winning bidder(s) on the best roll-out strategy for the network build on conclusion of this process.

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 Taskforce 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 Taskforce, 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.