Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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141. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the steps he has taken to ensure a speedy roll-out of the National Broadband Plan to ensure persons in rural Ireland can work from home. [25305/20]

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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163. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of the roll-out of the National Broadband Plan including promised properties, delivered properties and the timeline for each by county in tabular form. [25306/20]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 141 and 163 together.

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention will be delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) under a contract signed last November. The NBP network will offer users a high speed broadband service with a minimum download speed of 500Mbps from the outset. This represents an increase from the 150Mbps committed to under the Contract. The deployment plan forecasts premises passed in all counties within the first 2 years and over 90% of premises in the State having access to high speed broadband within the next four years.

As of 15 September, design work is complete or ongoing in target townlands across 21 counties and steady progress is being made with over 91,000 premises surveyed to date. This activity is increasing week on week and NBI expects to have completed some 120,000 surveys by the end of the year. This activity involves physically walking the routes and documenting images, notes and measurements of the poles, cables and underground ducts in each area. This is informing design solutions for provision of the fibre network. This detailed design is then used to initiate the ‘make ready’ project with eir for the area, where eir ensure any poles and ducts being reused are fit for purpose. It is also used to initiate works with the subcontractors deploying the actual fibre in the area.The laying of fibre should commence shortly with the first fibre to the home connections expected around December this year.

While substantial progress has been made to date, the Covid 19 pandemic has had an impact on the delivery of the fibre network. The extent of this impact is currently being assessed and NBI has committed to put in place measures to mitigate the impact in as far as possible.

Broadband Connection Points (BCPs) are a key element of the NBP providing high speed broadband in every county in advance of the roll out of the fibre to the home network. Some 144 BCP sites have been installed by NBI and the high speed broadband service will be switched on in these locations through service provider contracts managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development for publicly available sites and by the Department of Education and Skills for schools.

The Covid 19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of good reliable broadband to ensure that citizens across Ireland can avail of remote working, education and other essential online facilities. This is reflected in the commitments in the Programme for Government where delivery of the National Broadband Plan will be a key enabler to many of the policies envisaged particularly around increased levels of remote working. The Programme for Government has also committed to seek to accelerate the roll out of the National Broadband Plan.

My Department is continuing to engage with NBI to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of the NBP rollout to establish the possibility of bringing forward premises which are currently scheduled in years 6 and 7 of the plan to an earlier date. These discussions are on-going. Any changes proposed will require detailed technical, commercial and financial analysis.

Exploring the potential to accelerate the network rollout is being undertaken in parallel with the measures required to mitigate delays arising as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic which must be the primary focus at this juncture.

Based on information available at the 15 September, I can advise that the following is the number of premises per County that have been surveyed. I understand that surveying has recently commenced in other counties and will have commenced in all counties by year end.