Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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407. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when Carbury, County Kildare, will have access to fibre broadband; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52604/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to 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 today over 67% of the 2.3m premises in Ireland have access to high speed broadband. This is set to increase to 77% (1.8m premises) by the end of 2018 and to 90% (2.1m premises) by the end of 2020.

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 under the National Broadband Plan (NBP).

The Map is colour coded and searchable by address/eircode:

- The  AMBER areas represent the target areas for the proposed State led Intervention under the NBP and are the subject of an ongoing procurement process.

- The BLUE areas represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services.

- The Light BLUE areas 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 no premises in the townland of Carbury which fall within the AMBER area. 90% (54) fall within the BLUE area and 10% (6) are LIGHT BLUE.

Information on eir's planned rural deployment, including estimated rollout times, is available at . A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department’s website www.dccae.gov.ie as are quarterly updates on eir's rural deployment. eir has committed to completing the rollout by the end of 2018.

In the interim, practical initiatives will continue to be addressed through the work of the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce to address obstacles and improve connectivity in respect of existing and future mobile phone and broadband services.

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.