Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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169. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of connections made in each county and in each month of 2021 under the National Broadband Plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2136/22]

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention will be delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) under a contract 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 over 554,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with some 679 schools.

National Broadband Ireland has made steady progress on delivery of the new high speed fibre broadband network under the National Broadband Plan with 54,000 premises available to order and pre-order across 21 counties : Carlow, Clare, Cavan, Cork, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Louth, Mayo, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow. In total, over 290,000 premises in the Intervention Area across all counties have been surveyed, with over 154,000 premises constructed or under construction demonstrating that the project is reaching scale.

Connections have been made in 11 counties : Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Galway, Kerry, Limerick, Louth, Monaghan, Roscommon and Tipperary.  Almost 5000 premises were connected in 2021 and that number will continue to grow. To date the level of connections are in line with projections and in some areas are exceeding targets.