Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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156. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will clarify the way in which persons outside of the NBP intervention areas can access broadband provided by NBI and-or others in instances in which a service provider was built into their new development resulting in a monopoly-type situation; and if ComReg can investigate this situation. [21866/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The High-Speed Broadband Map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie, shows the areas included in the National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led intervention as well as areas targeted by commercial operators. The map is colour coded and searchable by address and Eircode. Premises in the AMBER area will be provided with high-speed broadband through the State led Intervention. The BLUE area represents those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services.

The focus of the National Broadband Plan State led Intervention, the contract for which was signed in November 2019 with National Broadband Ireland (NBI), are those premises in the country that are unable to achieve high speed broadband, and where commercial providers have confirmed to my Department that they have no plans to upgrade services to enable premises to achieve or exceed these speeds. My Department defines high speed broadband as a connection with minimum speeds of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload. Under State aid rules, my Department is not permitted to displace commercial investment by intervening in areas where commercial investment exists or is planned, as to do so would be an infringement of these State aid rules. The activities of commercial operators delivering high-speed broadband within BLUE areas are not planned or funded by the State and my Department has no statutory authority to intervene in that regard.

In December 2022 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.

83% of approximately 2.48 million premises in Ireland now have access to high-speed broadband of more than 30 Mbps.

Eir has committed to rolling out fibre to some 1.9 million premises. SIRO has passed more than 480,000 premises with gigabit services and has recently announced plans to extend its network to an additional 290,000 premises. Virgin Media plans to bring gigabit broadband upgrades to 1 million premises. The network operators and telecom service providers across the State also continue to invest in their networks.

The majority of digital connectivity across the State will be delivered through commercial investment by the telecommunications industry and this will be complemented by the National Broadband Plan.

Where a residential development owner or manager has contracted a telecoms service provider to supply a particular development on an exclusive basis, and a customer has concerns regarding choice of service provider, they should in the first instance raise this with the building owner or management company as appropriate as this is a contractual matter between them.

If this avenue has been exhausted without a satisfactory resolution, the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) may be able to assist further. ComReg is the independent body that issues licences to broadband service providers and investigates complaints to make sure that companies are delivering services in line with their licence obligations.