Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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25. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if his Department has identified any local barriers to the provision of high-speed broadband to every home, business and farm that wants it by the end of 2026. [38064/25]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The Government is committed to the rollout of highspeed broadband across the country, and indeed the National Broadband Plan (NBP) is the Government's initiative to deliver high speed broadband services to all premises in Ireland where the commercial telecom operators' reach will not extend.

Along with the NBP intervention contract (with National Broadband Ireland (NBI)), 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 2022 strategy are achieved.

Having said that, I acknowledge that at a local level, many challenges and issues can arise during the design, deployment and provisioning of such large scale digital infrastructure initiatives. This is one of the reasons that the Government established the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce. The Taskforce was established in 2016, re-established in December 2021, and continues as a initiative under the current Programme for Government. The Taskforce helps to ensure that, where barriers to telecoms infrastructure rollout within the State's control were identified, appropriate assessment and intervening measures are to be identified and action taken. The taskforce continues to identify and seek to resolve these issues as the network build progresses.

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

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 NBP intervention area may ultimately prove not to be commercially viable in terms of being connected to a gigabit network by 2028.

My department is currently monitoring and assessing this situation and will be examining the optimal policy solution/s, including from a cost and legal perspective, to addressing such potential Gigabit Blackspots (GBS) as they are known.

However, it is also important to note that a number of commercial operators are planning to continue rolling out fibre networks into 2026 and under European State Aid rules any intervention by the State must not be seen to crowd out private investment.