Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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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

These targets will be achieved through a combination of commercial investments and through the State investment in National Broadband Ireland (NBI).

The premises referred to in the Question is located in the BLUE area on the NBP High-Speed Broadband Map which is available on my Department's website at www.broadband.gov.ie.

BLUE areas are not included in the State intervention area covered by National Broadband Ireland as commercial operators are already providing high-speed broadband or have indicated future plans to do so. My Department defines high-speed broadband as a connection with minimum speeds of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload. Under State aid rules, it is not permitted to intervene in areas where commercial investment exists or is planned, as to do so would be an infringement of these 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.

This premises is part of a new build of 4 homes and first appeared on the Geo-directory in Q1 2022. Our records show that there is currently no HSBB available for open eir. Also please be aware that as a new build, the builder/developer should have liaised with open eir to have infrastructure connectivity but if they didn’t, your constituent should use the following link in order to get this new build connected and indexed to the open eir network open eir New Build Form (google.com) in order to organise a survey of the premises and allow open eir to index this new build to their network. They will provide end user with details on any potential civil works (ducts, cabling etc.) needed to ensure this premises will be connected to high speed broadband. This needs to be done by the developer/home owner and it is not in the remit of my Department.

Furthermore, the premises is part of Open eir’s national fibre rollout, currently underway nationwide. My officials are also seeking further information as to when Open eir plan to deploy fibre to this area, and I will revert to the Deputy once an update is received.

Open eir have already passed over 44,300 homes and businesses in Co. Donegal with gigabit services, with plans to pass a further c.26,700 homes and businesses over the next 2 – 3 years, bringing their total fibre-based investment in the county to over €40m. Other commercial operators are also continuing to increase their network footprint right across Donegal, with SIRO recently passing over 17,700 premises for full fibre.

Recent ComReg data shows that Quarter 2 2023 saw a 7.4% increase in fibre broadband subscriptions compared to the first 3 months of the year, and a 33.7% increase when compared to Quarter 2 of 2022. This demonstrates that take-up of fibre connectivity for homes and businesses is increasing massively as it is deployed to areas where it had previously been unavailable. The same ComReg data also indicates that c.40% of homes and business throughout the State now have access to gigabit services through either fibre (576,856) or cable (359,669) infrastructure.