Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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530. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of an agreement with a company (details supplied) in which 300,000 premises in rural areas were removed from the national broadband plan; if the company's infrastructure is still available to other competitors in the area and to those that win the national broadband plan tender; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6973/18]

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. Today 7 out of 10 of the 2.3 million premises in Ireland have access to high speed broadband.  By the end of this year that number will rise to nearly 8 out of 10 premises and by 2020, 9 out of 10 premises or 90% of premises will have access to a high speed broadband connection. This goal will be achieved by a combination of commercial investment and a State led intervention.

Part of that commercial investment is a commitment by eir to rollout high speed broadband to 300,000 premises in rural Ireland by the end of this year. In April 2017, I signed a Commitment Agreement with eir in relation to this rural deployment. Information on eir's rural deployment is available at .A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department’s websitewww.dccae.gov.ie.

Although deployment figures for Q4 2017 have not yet been verified by my Department’s teams, I understand eir has passed a total of 121,000 premises to date.

While eir recently withdrew their tender from the ongoing procurement process for the National Broadband Plan State led intervention, eir has reconfirmed its commitment to the ongoing rural deployment as well as its ongoing investment in broadband nationally and I welcome this.

The eir 300k network is an open access wholesale network that is subject to regulation by ComReg and, accordingly, is open to other operators.