Barry Cowen
Question:837. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his plans to install e-fibre and high-speed broadband in the Dublin Fingal constituency, both urban and rural. [14287/15]
View answerWednesday, 15 April 2015
Questions (837)
Written answers
The Government's National Broadband Plan aims to ensure that every citizen and business, regardless of location, has access to a high quality, high speed broadband service. This will be achieved through a combination of commercial investments and a State led intervention in areas where commercial services will not be provided. The commercial telecommunications sector is currently investing approximately €2.5 billion in network upgrades and enhanced services with approximately 1.6 million of the 2.3 million premises in Ireland expected to have access to commercial high speed broadband services over the next two years. These very significant investments represent a step-change in the quality of broadband services available.
Last November I published a national high speed coverage map for 2016. This map is available at www.broadband.gov.ie. The map shows Ireland with two colours, BLUE and AMBER. The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers plan to deliver high speed broadband services by end 2016. The AMBER areas on the map show the target areas for the State intervention.
Under EU State Aid rules, public investment in a commercial market has to be targeted at areas where there is evidence of clear market failure. Therefore, the Government's proposed investment under the NBP will only apply to those parts of Fingal that are within the Amber areas of our map. Those premises in Fingal within the Blue areas will be provided with services through commercial investment.
Intensive design and planning work is underway in my Department to produce a detailed intervention strategy for the AMBER area. Following a public consultation process on the draft Intervention Strategy this summer, I hope to move to a formal procurement process towards the end of this year in order to select a preferred bidder or bidders.
I anticipate that the first homes and businesses will be connected in 2016 and connections will continue thereafter, with the intention of having all premises connected within a 5 year period.
This complex and ambitious project is a key priority for Government. It aims to conclusively address current connectivity challenges in Ireland.