Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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65. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the degree to which his Department continues to monitor the progress in the delivery of broadband in urban and rural areas throughout the country having particular regard to the increased reliance on electronic communications given the necessity to work from home; if he is satisfied that the progress to date is adequate; his plans for specific measures to accelerate the roll-out; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8974/21]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I recognise how vital telecommunications services are to citizens for so many aspects of their daily lives, including remote working, studying and staying in touch with family members during the Covid-19 crisis. In April of last year, all major telecommunications providers in Ireland committed to a number of measures to help people stay in touch and work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, a number of operators have implemented further supports for consumers, such as for students in education, who require a high data usage package, by increasing data limits on many existing packages and by the introduction of new packages with very high, or unlimited data offerings. As a result, the market for mobile packages with very high, or unlimited data offerings, is becoming increasingly competitive, which is a positive development for consumers.

Those commitments were further supported through regulations made under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1926, enabling ComReg to release additional rights of use for radio spectrum on a temporary basis. Ministerial consent was granted for this framework proposed by the regulator to provide flexibility for mobile network operators to create additional capacity for mobile phone and broadband services and accommodate the increased demand due to Covid 19 related working and studying from home. Licences were issued to three mobile network operators and renewed on  a number of occasions with the most recent renewal valid until 1 April 2021.      

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention is being delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) to roll out a high speed and future proofed broadband network within the Intervention Area which covers 1.1 million people living and working in the nearly 540,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with 695 schools.

The NBP network will offer users a high speed broadband service with a minimum download speed of 500Mbps from the outset. 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.

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.  As of 3 March, 287 publicly accessible 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.

Bringing connectivity to remote rural locations is central to promoting regional development and BCPs represent an important delivery in the early stages of the National Broadband Plan.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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66. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the discussions he or his Department have had to date in 2021 with National Broadband Ireland to date in 2021 in relation to speeding up the roll-out of the national broadband plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1012/21]

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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77. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the progress being made to accelerate the roll-out of broadband to rural Ireland as committed to in the Programme for Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13085/21]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 66 and 77 together.

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. The Programme for Government commits to seek to accelerate the roll out of the National Broadband Plan. In this regard, my Department continues to engage with NBI to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of this rollout to establish the possibility of bringing forward premises which are currently scheduled in years 6 and 7 of the current plan to an earlier date.

NBI has established a dedicated team to investigate acceleration of the rollout from its current contracted schedule of seven years.  As part of that work NBI is engaging with current build partners (eir and enet) to bring forward build activities and is also actively reviewing other possible build partners such as the ESB where such options could also speed up the build process. 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 Covid-19.