Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) state led intervention is being delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) under a contract, signed in November 2019 and which came into effect in January 2020, 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 over 560,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with some 679 schools.

The Minister has a contract with NBI to provide and operate a Gigabit broadband fibre network. The Minister does not have a direct contractual relationship with NBI’s subcontractors.

To protect the State investment and ensure that the NBP milestones and deliverables are met, the contract has been designed to include extensive protections, quality checks and reporting and monitoring obligations. The Department, as the contracting authority, will manage all of the elements of contract governance. The Department has a core existing team, which is augmented by specialist external services to effectively manage the contract. These include technical, commercial advisory, business process and legal services.

NBI has a suite of subcontractors to deploy and manage the operation of the network. As these subcontractors are managed directly by NBI, any queries in relation to their subcontractors may be directed to NBI. NBI have a dedicated email address, reps@nbi.ie, which may be used by Oireachtas members to raise specific queries.