I propose to take Questions Nos. 839 to 841, inclusive, together.
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 18 months. 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.
It is anticipated that speeds of at least 30Mbps will be also delivered through the Government's intervention and the network will be designed to cater for future increased demand from consumers and business.
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 Cork that are within the Amber areas of our map. Those premises in County Cork within the Blue areas will be provided with services through commercial investment over the next 18 months.
Eircom recently announced an investment that may address a further 300,000 premises with fibre-to-the-premises technology including Cork. 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.
More generally I can confirm that next generation broadband services have been rolled out to 126,118 premises to date in Co Cork with a further 55,664 expected to be served over the next 18 months. The remaining 85,972 premises in Co Cork will be covered by commercial investment or be the target for the proposed State intervention under the National Broadband Plan.
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 3-5 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.
