Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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554. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when high speed broadband will be rolled out to homes and businesses in remote parts of Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50380/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to ensure that every home, school and business in Ireland - regardless of how remote or rural - has access to high speed broadband. This is being achieved through a combination of commercial investment across Ireland; and a State intervention in those areas, mostly rural areas, where commercial companies are unlikely to invest.

The NBP has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector. In 2012, less than 700,000, or 30% of all 2.3 million Irish premises had access to high speed broadband.  Today, 74% of premises can access high speed broadband.

In April 2017 my Department 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. 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 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 rollout high speed broadband to 300,000 premises as part of a Commitment Agreement signed with my Department in April 2017.

 According to data for Q3 2018 submitted by eir to my Department the company has passed almost 210,000 premises nationwide as part of its ongoing deployment to 300,000 premises. Further detail on this progress is provided on its website www.fibrerollout.ie.

My priority is bringing the procurement process to a fair and impartial conclusion as quickly as possible.  My Department is concluding its assessment of the final tender submission received from the bidder on 18 September 2018 and I will bring a recommendation to Government in the coming weeks. 

For those premises currently awaiting access to high speed broadband, 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.