Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, 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 commercial operators investing in their networks, complemented by the State’s National Broadband Plan intervention. When taken together, all premises in the State will have access to high-speed broadband in every part of the country no matter how remote.

Commercial operators’ fibre rollouts are progressing at pace. Open eir have already passed over 1.1 million homes. SIRO has recently reached a milestone of enabling over 545,000 premises for full fibre and is on track to reach 700,000 premises by 2026. Virgin Media recently announced a €200 million investment plan to upgrade its cable network to bring full fibre to up to 1 million premises over the next three years, to date it has passed 252,000 premises with full fibre.

National Broadband Ireland (NBI) is currently rolling out of a high speed and future-proofed broadband network to primarily rural areas through its Contract with the Minister. The intervention area covers over 1.1 million people living and working in over 560,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with some 679 schools.

NBI believe they are now making up for delays encountered due to Covid restrictions and they will continue to seek to accelerate the rollout where possible. They expect to pass over 300,000 premises by the end of 2024.

Over 218,200 premises have now been passed with an average of 7,000 premises being passed each month across all counties.

To date over 71,400 full fibre connections have been made by NBI across all counties and demand remains very strong where fibre is available. Over 3,500 connections are being made each month.

In 2025 and 2026, NBI expect to pass over 100,000 premises per year and complete the rollout ahead of schedule and on or below budget.

My Department has engaged with NBII at every opportunity to explore options that might increase the pace of rollout. For example, my Department has been working with Directors of Service and Broadband Officers from each of the 31 Local Authorities, the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), the County and City Management Agency (CCMA), the Road Management Office (RMO) and other Government Departments, where appropriate, to ensure that any possible barriers that might delay the rollout are addressed as soon as possible. Engagement with other bodies such as Transport Infrastructure Ireland, Irish Rail and ComReg is also undertaken.

I understand that NBI are in regular discussions with eir, who are responsible for the remediation of eir poles, to increase the rate of pole replacement each month and eir have responded positively to these requests. NBII have also procured the necessary subcontractors, materials and equipment to support the programme into the foreseeable future to ensure there are no bottlenecks in the supply chain that could interfere with the rollout.

The network rollout for the NBP is divided into 227 Deployment Areas (DAs) across the country. These typically measure approximately 25km in radius and cover 96% of Ireland’s landmass. The network is specifically designed based on the NBI network coming from the eir exchanges or the metropolitan area networks (MANs) which allows NBI to reach every premises quickly.

Recent ComReg data shows that Quarter 2 of 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 substantially 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.