Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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71. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment for an update on the Programme for Government commitment to complete installing high-speed fibre broadband to 1.1 million people, including homes, farms, and businesses nationwide as of July 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37960/25]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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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.

National Broadband Ireland (NBI) are connecting circa 4,400 homes each month.

I am advised by NBI that there are over 564,000 premises in the Intervention Area (IA) and design work has been completed for 100% of these. NBI has also passed over 381,000 premises (68%) in the intervention area and are connecting circa 4,400 premises to their fibre network per month. NBI expect to have passed over 420,000 premises by end of 2025. NBI has also signed contracts with 72 Retail Service Providers (RSP’s) with 68 of these having completed NBI’s onboarding process and they are selling services as connections become available.

Along with the NBP intervention contract, progress is being made by commercial operators in expanding their next generation networks throughout the State and ensuring the targets set out in the Digital Connectivity strategy are achieved.

Based on current plans and achievements, the Department expect to deliver the deployment of the NBP by the end of 2026, as per the Programme for Government commitment.

Recently published ComReg data shows that Quarter 1 of 2025, saw a 4.8% increase in fibre to the premises (FTTP) subscriptions compared to Quarter 4, 2024, and a 27.54% increase when compared to Quarter 1 of 2024. This demonstrates that the take-up of fibre connectivity for homes and businesses is increasing as the services are deployed to areas where they had previously been unavailable. The same ComReg data also reports that at the end of Q1 2025, 76% of all premises in Ireland have access to gigabit services.