Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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722. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when fibre broadband will be available in Ardnacrusha County Clare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30356/25]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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In December 2022, Ireland's Digital Connectivity Strategy was published which supports the ambition outlined in the National Digital Strategy and set out a number of targets including that all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028.

The Programme for Government – Securing Ireland’s Future published in January 2025 sets a number of targets which include the completion of the installation of high-speed fibre broadband to 1.1 million people, including homes, farms, and businesses nationwide, by 2026.

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) is the Government's initiative to deliver high speed broadband services to all premises in Ireland.

Ardnacrusha is largely located in the AMBER area on the broadband map, which can be found on www.gov.ie/en/publication/5634d-national-broadband-plan-map/. The AMBER area is to be served by the network deployed under the NBP State led intervention.

National Broadband Ireland (NBI) have advised that Ardnacrusha comes under the Cloghera electoral area and is included in NBI’s Limerick Deployment Area (DA). NBI further advise that there are 269 premises that are included in the Cloghera electoral district that are to be served by the network deployed under the NBP State led intervention.

• 261 of these premises can currently order/ pre-order high-speed fibre broadband.
• 3 premises are at network build stage which have an anticipated connection timeframe of October 2025 - December 2025.
• 5 premises have been reclassified into the rollout and have a current anticipated timeframe of October 2026- December 2026.

This website is regularly updated providing the expected timeline for delivery and status of any works that are initiated at any point in time. NBI also has a dedicated email address, reps@nbi.ie, which can be used by Oireachtas members for specific queries.

The remainder of the premises in Ardnacrusha are in the BLUE area on the broadband map.

The BLUE area represents those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high-speed broadband services. The Department defines high-speed broadband as a connection with minimum speeds of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload.

The activities of commercial operators delivering high-speed broadband within BLUE areas are not planned or funded by the State and the Department has no statutory authority to intervene in that regard. There may be a choice of operators offering this service in any given area. Further information in this regard is available at www.comreg.ie/compare/#/services.

If a person lives in the BLUE area and after contacting their Retail Service Provider are told they cannot get access to greater than 30Mbps, they should raise a query via the webform which can be accessed by clicking on “contact us” in the Contact section on and the department will escalate with the commercial operator to investigate this matter further.

As per records online at , Ardnacrusha has been included in open eir’s full fibre deployment programme. This fibre upgrade is ongoing with some premises already able to order a full fibre Gigabit connection with speeds up to 2Gbps. The Department does not have sight of information that provides an estimated timeline of when Open eir will provide a full fibre Gigabit connection to all premises in Ardnacrusha, other than what’s on the Open eir messaging (i.e. some point between now and 2026, when the programme is due to conclude).