Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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174. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the measures in the national broadband plan which will ensure social inclusion on the basis of pricing for the service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24064/18]

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 2020, 9 out of 10 premises will have access to a high speed broadband connection. This is being achieved via a combination of commercial investment and a State led intervention for those areas where commercial operators are unlikely to invest. The National Broadband Plan Intervention Strategy outlines various aspects of the proposed State led intervention. This document is available at .

The Strategy recognises that access to quality high speed broadband enables people to access information, services and opportunities that may otherwise be out of reach.  To that end, the company appointed to build and operate the State led intervention network must deliver a wholesale high speed broadband network that is open on an equal access basis to retail service providers, with benchmarked and transparent pricing and conditions for access. It must also ensure that services are affordable, competitive and comparable to prices charged in areas outside the intervention area.

It is the intention that the wholesale prices charged by the company operating the network within the intervention area will be in line with the average published wholesale prices that prevail for comparable services in more competitive areas of the country or, in the absence of such published prices, prices already set or approved by the industry regulator, ComReg.

My Department is in a formal procurement process to select a company who will roll-out the new high speed broadband network in the State intervention area. That procurement process is now in its final stages.