Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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62. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his plans to improve the provision of broadband in County Meath. [53182/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The National Broadband Plan 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 operators acting alone are unlikely to invest.

Since December 2015, the number of premises with access to high-speed broadband in Meath has increased by over 11,700, a 23% increase.

In total, the number of premises in Meath with access to high speech broadband is almost 63,000, 74% of total premises in Meath. Another 2,400 will be served by eir's planned rural deployment. The remaining almost 20,000 homes, school and business in Meath will be connected under the government’s National Broadband Plan.

In April 2017 my Department published an updated High Speed Broadband Map, which is available at . 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 or Eircode.

The procurement process to appoint a bidder for the State intervention network is now at the final stage. My priority is to bring the procurement process to a fair and impartial conclusion as quickly as possible. My Department will now conclude 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.