Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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121. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will outline a detailed timeline for the delivery of the Digital Connectivity Strategy; if he will provide an update on the National Broadband Plan in view of this new initiative; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62562/22]

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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The Government of Ireland’s National Digital Strategy (NDS), Harnessing Digital – The Digital Ireland Framework, is helping to drive the digital transition across the economy and society, to the benefit of all.

The Government is committed to a fast-paced digital transformation for the country. The availability of high-speed, reliable, digital connectivity will support the delivery of Ireland’s economic and social ambitions and will position Ireland at the forefront of European and global digital developments.

Last week my Department published Ireland's Digital Connectivity Strategy which supports the ambition outlined in the National Digital Strategy and sets out a number of ambitious targets, including that:

- all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028

- all populated areas will be covered by 5G no later than 2030, and

-digital connectivity will be delivered to all schools and broadband connection points by 2023.

Through the commercial investment by the telecommunications industry, digital connectivity will be delivered across the vast majority of the State; this will be complemented by the State through the National Broadband Plan. The Government remains committed to roll out the National Broadband Plan, and is ensuring an agile and responsive approach to the delivery of this key large scale project with €2.7 billion committed to the Plan in what is a constantly evolving environment.

As of 02 December 2022, NBI advise that over 112,200 premises can order or pre-order a high-speed broadband connection across 25 counties, with over 101,700 premises passed across 25 counties and available for immediate connection. Construction is underway across 26 counties demonstrating that the project is reaching scale. To date, the level of connections is increasing on a daily basis and is exceeding projections.

Strategic Connection Points (SCPs) 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 02 December 2022, 823 SCP sites (280 Broadband Connection Points, which are publicly accessible sites, and 543 schools) have been installed 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 BCPs and the Department of Education for school SCP’s.

My Department continues to work with the Department of Education to prioritise schools with no high-speed broadband, within the Intervention Area. Further details are available on the NBI website at nbi.ie/primary-schools-list/.

Eir has committed to rolling out fibre to a further 1.6 million premises, bringing their fibre deployment to some 1.9 million premises. SIRO is currently completing the first phase of its fibre deployment and to date has passed more than 430,000 premises with gigabit services and it has recently announced plans to extend its network to an additional 320,000 premises. Virgin Media is offering 250Mbps as a standard offering with 500Mbps and 1Gbps available to many of their customers across the more than 1 million premises that they cover. Many other network operators and telecom service providers across the State also continue to invest in their networks.