Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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418. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if Storm Ophelia will delay the roll-out of broadband in parts of County Kerry to the end of 2018; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48164/17]

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 1.5 or 65% of the 2.3 premises in Ireland can get high speed broadband of a minimum per second and this footprint is expanding.

In April 2017, I signed a Commitment Agreement with eir in relation to its plans to provide high speed broadband to 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis. eir has committed to completing the rollout by the end of 2018.  Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at http: .  A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department’s website www.dccae.gov.ie.

Quarterly updates from eir are published on this website.  Q1 and Q2 2017 quarterly targets to date have been achieved by eir and available online via. Evaluation by my Department of the Q3 update for eir’s rural deployment is at an advanced stage and indicates that eir has met its Q3 2017 target of 101,000 premises passed as at the end of September 2017.  The statistics for Q3 2017 will be published on my Department’s website shortly.

Storm Ophelia, which hit our shores on 16^thOctober, caused extensive damage to infrastructure across the country.  I understand from eir that necessary resources were redirected to affected areas in order to restore service.  Force majeure events, such as Ophelia, may cause an impact in a quarterly period to eir's planned rural deployment. However, the Commitment Agreement contains provisions to ensure that action will be taken by eir, within a window of six months of missing a quarterly target for an area, in order to reach the overall commitment of providing access to broadband for the 300,000 rural premises.

My Department is in regular contact with eir in relation to the Commitment Agreement and will continue this engagement with the aim of ensuring the requirements of the Commitment Agreement are met.