Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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931. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the amount spent on the national broadband plan over the past five years (details supplied); and the total internal costs incurred by his Department to date on the project. [6160/20]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The contract signed with National Broadband Ireland in November 2019 is the Government’s plan to rollout high speed broadband to the 1.1 million people living and working in the nearly 540,000 premises including almost 100,000 businesses and farms, along with 695 schools, where commercial operators will not commit to deliver the service.

It will ensure that one quarter of the country mostly living in rural Ireland are not left behind. Without high speed broadband it will be much more difficult to sustain existing jobs or create new ones. It will make it possible for rural Ireland to take advantage of the opportunities created by the digital economy, from health care to farming from education to agricultural development to tourism

The total amount spent on the National Broadband Plan over the past five years is €40,427,264 including VAT.

A breakdown of the amount spent by year is set out the table:

My Department's NBP team has also been supported by other officers across the Department. While the Department does not operate on a basis of allocating costs for each staff member across its range of functions, salary and other administration related costs for the Department are published in the annual Estimates and in the Appropriation Account.

All large projects require significant preparatory expenditure prior to commencement; this is particularly the case for complex, long term projects with financial, technical and legal elements such as the NBP.