Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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67. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the steps being taken to address the ongoing broadband blackspots in parts of County Galway including Castleblakeney, Williamstown, Kilkerrin and Mountbellew; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52779/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The NBP aims to provide access to high speed broadband to all premises, including those in the areas referenced by the Deputy. My Department’s High Speed Broadband Map, available at , shows those areas of Ireland 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 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 rollout high speed broadband to 300,000 premises as part of a Commitment Agreement signed with my Department in April 2017.

Premises in the areas referred to by the Deputy fall into all of these categories. Information on the status of specific premises is available on my Department’s website by entering the relevant Eircode into the Map.

To address mobile phone blackspots, officials in my Department and in the Department of Rural and Community Development are actively engaged with local authorities and mobile phone operators to identify priority blackspots and take action to resolve this issue. Both Departments have worked with a pilot group of local authorities to identify the issues associated with local blackspots.