James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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23. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the position regarding the roll-out of the national broadband plan with specific reference to County Wexford; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15976/20]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The High Speed Broadband Map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie, shows the areas in County Wexford which will be included in the National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led intervention as well as areas targeted by commercial operators. The map is colour coded and searchable by address and Eircode.

- Premises in the AMBER area will be provided with high speed broadband through the State led Intervention, the contract for which was signed in November last with NBI. 22,175 premises in Wexford fall into this category.

- The BLUE area represents those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services. 60,317 premises in Wexford fall into this category.

- The LIGHT BLUE area represents eir's commercial rural deployment plans to rollout high speed broadband to 300,000 premises, including in Wexford as part of a Commitment Agreement signed with my Department in April 2017. 417 premises in Wexford fall into this category.

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) network will offer premises within the AMBER State Intervention area, a high speed broadband service with a minimum download speed of 150Mbps from the outset. By the end of next year, NBI plans to pass in the region of 115,000 premises, with 70,000 - 100,000 passed each year thereafter until rollout is completed. All counties will see premises passed in the first 2 years and over 90% of premises in the State will have access to high speed broadband within the next four years.

Design work is complete or ongoing in target townlands across 17 counties and steady progress is being made with over 40,000 premises surveyed to date. I am advised that contractors have been on the ground in Wexford surveying townlands in Oylegate, Castlebridge, Taghmon, Ballykelly, and Barntown. Over 3,500 premises have been surveyed to date in the county, including other areas such as Castle Ellis, Kilbride, Ballyhuskard, Bridgetown and Whitechurch. Further information on deployment activities associated with the rollout can be found on the NBI website .

My Department is currently engaging with National Broadband Ireland to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of the NBP rollout to bring forward premises which are currently scheduled in years 6 and 7 of the current plan to an earlier date. These discussions are ongoing and a preliminary position will be arrived at by the end of the summer.