Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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594. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he is aware of the fact that in many rural parts of the State existing broadband providers cannot or will not provide adequate broadband coverage; if his Department will acknowledge that this causes great inconvenience to residents in these areas and affects their mobility to work, particularly those who work from home; and the steps his Department will take to address this situation. [47711/25]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) is the Government's initiative to deliver high speed broadband services to all premises in Ireland.

The Government identified a need to deliver broadband services where commercial operators would not operate such as in parts of rural Ireland. As part of the NBP, the Government appointed National Broadband Ireland (NBI) to deliver wholesale broadband services to those parts of the country not served by commercial operators.

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 403,800 premises 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 also advise that circa 429,900 premises, across all counties in mainly rural areas, can now order or pre-order broadband and over 143,615 premises are already connected.

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.

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.

The Department is aware of some evidence emerging, based on conversations with ComReg and commercial operators, that a portion of premises that do not form part of the intervention area may prove not to be commercially viable in terms of being connected to a gigabit network by 2028. The Department is currently investigating reasons for why such instances may arise with a view to identifying solutions.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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595. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will intervene to ensure that a person (details supplied) will receive adequate broadband coverage to ensure that they are able to continue in their present employment. [47712/25]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The National Broadband Plan (NBP) is the government's initiative to deliver high speed broadband services to all premises in Ireland.

The premises in question is in the BLUE area on the broadband map which is available on my Department's website www.gov.ie/en/publication/5634d-national-broadband-plan-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.

As per information available at www.openeir.ie/fibre/broadband-checker the premises is included in open eirs Full Fibre deployment programme. The Department does not have sight of information that provides an estimated timeline of when commercial operators will provide a full fibre connection to the area, other than what’s on the open eir messaging.

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 www.gov.ie/en/publication/5634d-national-broadband-plan-map/ and the Department will escalate with the commercial operator to investigate this matter further.