Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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968. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the planned roll-out of fibre broadband in County Monaghan will stop 200 m short of the Border meaning that households and businesses within that area will not have access to high speed broadband; if he will request a company (details supplied) to ensure that the provision of fibre broadband is extended in order that all households and businesses based within 200 m of the Border have access to high speed broadband; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45850/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Decisions by private telecommunication operators, relating to the roll-out and siting of infrastructure to provide high speed broadband services throughout Ireland, including County Monaghan, are undertaken on a commercial basis by competing service providers operating in a liberalised market.  I have no statutory role or function to intervene in the commercial decisions of private operators.However, facilitating commercial investment is a critical element of the Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) and to date industry has invested over €2.5bn on broadband and communications services.  As of September 2017 approximately 1.5m or 65% of the 2.3m premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband and this footprint in expanding.

The NBP outlines Government commitment to deliver access to high speed broadband (minimum download 30 megabits per second) to all homes and businesses, regardless of location, across the country.

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 NBP. 

The Map is searchable by eircode and is colour coded:-

- AMBER for areas to be covered by the State led Intervention under the NBP;

- BLUE for areas where commercial operators are delivering or have indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services; and

- 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.

The map shows that there are c33,000 premises In Co Monaghan, of which c16,000 premises will benefit from the State led Intervention under the NBP.  The remaining c17,000 premises are located in the commercial BLUE area and will be served by commercial operators.  This figure includes the c4,600 premises that fall within eir’s plans to deliver rural high speed broadband between now and end 2018 (Light BLUE on map).  Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at  . 

With regard to the areas covered by the State led Intervention under the NBP, 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 to remote and rural areas not served by commercial operators.  A significant milestone in that procurement process was reached in September with the submission of "Detailed Solutions" by two bidders.  This is the last stage of the procurement process before receipt of final tenders.

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.