Robert Troy
Question:544. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when broadband will be available in Abbeyshrule, County Longford, and throughout the county. [32032/16]
View answerTuesday, 25 October 2016
Questions (544)
Written answers
The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to deliver high speed services to every city, town, village and individual premises in Ireland. The Programme for Government commits to the delivery of the NBP as a matter of priority. This is being achieved through private investment by commercial telecommunications companies and through a State intervention in areas where commercial investment is not forthcoming. The formal procurement process for the State Intervention commenced in December 2015.
The High Speed Broadband Map, which is available on the Department's website, shows the extent of the State Intervention area:
- The areas marked BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have previously indicated plans to deliver high speed broadband services.
- The areas marked AMBER on the High Speed Broadband Map represent the target areas for the State Intervention which are the subject of the current procurement process.
The map provides information on a county by county basis with a breakdown of coverage across the townlands in every county including Co Longford. Individuals can check whether their premises is in a BLUE or an AMBER area by scrolling through the map online or entering their Eircode. The Department also has a dedicated mailbox and anyone with a query in relation to the Map should email the Department, quoting their Eircode, to broadband@dcenr.gov.ie.
Over 11,000 premises in County Longford are within the AMBER area and will be covered by the State Intervention including the townland of Abbeyshrule, and will therefore be included in the procurement process.
The Department is now in a formal procurement process to select a company or companies who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network in the State Intervention Area comprising over 750,000 premises in Ireland, covering 100,000 km of road network and 96% of the land area of Ireland. Since bidders were invited to participate in dialogue with the Department, there have been approximately 150 hours of meetings, with considerable more interaction to follow over the coming months.
Earlier this year, before I came into office, the Department announced that it would be June 2017 before contract(s) were awarded under the NBP. The bidders in the process have recently indicated that they may need more time to conclude the procurement process. The timing of each stage of the procurement continues to be dependent on a range of factors including the complexities that may be encountered by the procurement team, and bidders, during the procurement process. Bidders need adequate time to prepare detailed proposals and their final formal bids and get the relevant shareholder and funding approvals at key stages of the process.
During the Department's extensive stakeholder consultations in 2015, telecommunications service providers indicated that it could take 3-5 years to roll-out a network of the scale envisaged under the NBP. It is however open to bidder(s) to suggest more aggressive timescales as part of their bids.
As part of the competitive process, the Department will engage with winning bidder(s) on the best roll-out strategy, in order to target areas of particularly poor service, business needs and/or high demand. This will need to be balanced with the most efficient network roll-out plan. A prioritisation programme will be put in place in this regard, in consultation with the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. A detailed roll-out plan for the network will be published once contract(s) are in place.
The Programme for Government also commits to measures to assist in the roll-out of the network once a contract is awarded. In this regard, Minister Humphreys is leading on the establishment of two regional action groups, working with Local Authorities, Local Enterprise Offices and other relevant agencies to help accelerate the broadband network build in rural Ireland, once a contract(s) has been awarded.