Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 June 2015
124. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his views that it is acceptable that there is no solution identified to provide broadband in substantial parts of County Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22990/15]
View answerThe 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 market failure. Therefore, the Government's proposed investment under the NBP will only apply to those parts of County Dublin that are within the Amber areas of our map. Those premises in Co Dublin within the Blue areas will be provided with services through commercial investment.
In addition, eircom recently announced an investment that may address a further 300,000 premises with fibre-to-the-premises technology. My Department will be rigorously examining the assurances from eircom in relation to these new plans, which is a requirement for all operators, and will review how this impacts the proposed intervention area.
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 formal procurement phase towards the end of this year in order to select a preferred bidder or bidders.
I expect the physical build of the network to begin in late 2016, and it will take between three and five years to fully complete – depending on the details of the bid or bids selected.
This complex and ambitious project is a key priority for Government and aims to conclusively address current broadband connectivity issues in mainly rural parts of the country.
