Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 November 2015
72. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if this Government is committed to providing fibre broadband to every household in County Donegal; if not, the reason why; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38991/15]
View answerI would like to ask the Minister for an update on progress in the delivery of high-speed fibre-optic broadband to homes across Donegal and other parts of the country. What timelines are in place for the delivery of high-speed broadband under the Government's proposed national broadband scheme?
When will it start and when will it be completed, something that is important for premises that are waiting anxiously on it?
The Government’s national broadband plan aims to ensure 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 State-led intervention in areas where commercial services will not be provided. In July of this year, I published a detailed draft intervention strategy for public consultation. That strategy proposes that the State-funded network must be capable of delivering high-quality, high-speed broadband with a minimum download speed of at least 30 Mbps and a minimum upload speed of at least 6 Mbps. It must be capable of catering for higher performance in the future to keep pace with consumer demand. This will be a specific requirement of the tender. It will be a matter for bidders to select the technology they consider will best deliver the service.
As I have repeatedly said, we must observe a strict policy of technology neutrality in any procurement process. Therefore, I am not in a position to promise connectivity through any particular technology platform. As I have said, we will set out a detailed service specification, including a requirement to scale up services over the lifetime of the contract. We will allow bidders to show how they propose to meet these contractual requirements. Given the quality of the services we wish to see delivered and based on the current absence of significant fibre networks in many parts of Ireland, it is likely that fibre will play a major role in any proposed solution. However, the technology platforms that provide the final connectivity to premises will be matters for commercial operators to decide on. The Government is determined to ensure the network is built as quickly as possible. Engagement with industry stakeholders has indicated that this could be achieved within three to five years of the award of the contract. In this context, the national broadband plan proposes that through a combination of commercial investment and State intervention, 85% of addresses in Ireland will have access to high-speed services by 2018 with all addresses passed by 2020.
I thank the Minister for his response. The speed and urgency with which the Government has addressed the broadband issue and the need to ensure all parts of the country receive fibre broadband has been lamentably slow. It is unacceptable that many parts of the country are waiting for the State-assisted scheme on which they will depend to achieve fibre broadband. The Minister indicated in his response that the tender he is planning to bring to procurement will specify "a minimum download speed of at least 30 Mbps". Will he comment on the future-proofing of such a level of speed? It is simply not good enough. We should be seeking to ensure the State scheme provides a fibre broadband service to every household in the country. This is what was done when electricity and telephone services were rolled out many years ago. We should be taking the same approach to broadband services. The Minister has indicated the Department must be technology neutral with regard to the technological platforms proposed by the various companies that tender for the delivery of broadband. If he were to indicate that the technology used should be fibre broadband, he would have much more control. It would be more expensive, but the Minister would be ensuring not only that every household gets high-speed fibre broadband once and for all but also that the service is future-proofed. Will the Minister comment on the suitability of that in the context of the minimum speeds he is proposing?
Under state aid and other EU rules, I am not in a position to specify a required technology but I am in a position to specify that the service would have a minimum download speed of 30 Mbps and a minimum upload speed of 6 Mbps. If the Deputy reviews the literature and the experience in other countries and the technologies that are available elsewhere, he might come to the conclusion that it is likely that fibre will feature in the deployment of such a service here. When we specify that minimum requirement, it is likely that fibre will feature prominently in it. I had to remind the Deputy's colleague, Deputy Moynihan, a few minutes ago that when this Government came into office in 2011, some 300,000 addresses throughout this country had access to high-speed broadband. That figure is now 1.3 million and it will be 1.6 million by the end of 2016. By 2018, 85% of the country will have been covered.
The Minister promised it would be 90%.
Full coverage will be attained by 2020.
The Minister has outlined how much broadband has improved in the last few years but all of that has been no thanks to himself, although he is not slow to stand up here today and try to give the impression that the improvement is the product of this particular Government. The Minister might consider the fact that in County Donegal, following on from the broadband mapping exercise conducted by his Department, 52% of all premises in that county, both private and residential, are awaiting a Government scheme before they will get high-speed broadband. The private sector has indicated that it will not provide services to those areas. The people are waiting on the Minister to deliver broadband but unfortunately all we have had over the last five years is the current and previous Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, making grand announcements about how they are going to deliver broadband to the public. As of now, this Government has not spent one euro in delivering broadband services to Donegal. Indeed, by the time it leaves office, this Government will not have delivered broadband services to any premises in Donegal. It is somewhere into the future, at best three to five years way, despite the fact that the current Government has been in power for five years. Donegal and other parts of the country which require State assistance to get broadband are falling behind. It is a critical item of infrastructure and businesses and everyday life fall behind and areas become more peripheral without it.
Thank you, Deputy. We are way over time on this.
The record has been poor. I ask the Minister to indicate when we can expect this to proceed because there are many areas still waiting for it.
I call on the Minister to reply and conclude.
In the first instance, the delivery of such an important piece of infrastructure, as the Deputy must know, is a major undertaking by the State. It is a major intervention by the State and is not a matter of, as the old joke went about one of Deputy McConalogue's party colleagues, arriving in a constituency with telephones in the boot of one's car. It is not like that. The facility has actually to be built. We must have State aid approval, make sure the financing is in place and make sure that all of the requirements are met.
We have no state aid approval.
The Government has had five years.
The private sector-----
Five years.
There is no state aid approval yet.
We know that there is an election coming.
The Minister knows there is an election coming.
We know the Deputy is grandstanding on this issue and waving sheets of paper at me-----
It was the Government that spoke about 90% five years ago.
The Deputy must understand, and he should take some time off from the grandstanding to look at the issue, that we absolutely intend to deliver.
If the Deputy looks at the lamentable performance of the last Government with regard to broadband he will see that we have worked very closely with the private sector. I am not claiming to have personally affixed fibre or any other technology to any individual home in the country or that I have lugged the equipment around myself.
That is certainly not the case.
I did not make any claims like that. What I said was that this Government is working assiduously and in a very committed manner to deliver this. The Minister of State, Deputy McHugh, and myself have worked very hard, not just to ensure that it happens in Donegal but that it happens right across the country. Less grandstanding, shouting and roaring in here and more hard work is what this Government does.
Nothing has been delivered.
We do not even have the approval yet.
The next question is from Deputy Broughan.
