Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 February 2018
521. Deputy Willie Penrose asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his views on the impact a lack of broadband and mobile telephone signal has on farmers and agricultural contractors seeking to use technology such as GPS and other applications to implement smart farming; and his plans to address this. [7165/18]
View answerThe Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to ensure high speed broadband access (minimum 30 megabits per second) to all premises in Ireland, regardless of location. The NBP has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector. 7 out of 10 of the 2.3 million premises in Ireland now have access to high speed broadband. Within a year that number will rise to nearly 8 out of 10 premises and by 2020 9 out of 10 premises or 90% of premises will have access to a high speed broadband connection.
In April 2017 I published an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie. This map shows the areas targeted by commercial operators to provide high speed broadband services and the areas that will be included in the State Intervention Area under the National Broadband Plan (NBP).
The Map is colour coded and searchable by address/eircode:
- The AMBER areas represent the target areas for the proposed State led Intervention under the NBP and are the subject of an ongoing procurement process.
- The BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services.
- The LIGHT BLUE areas represent eir's commercial rural deployment plans to rollout high speed broadband to 300,000 premises by the end of this year as part of a Commitment Agreement signed with me in April.
Those employed in the agricultural sector live and work in areas which fall into all of these categories. Individuals can visit my Department’s High Speed Broadband map at www.broadband.gov.ie and enter their eircode to see which category their premises fall into. The negative impact a lack of high speed broadband is having on these agricultural communities will be relieved via a combination of commercial investment and a State led intervention under the National Broadband Plan
In April 2017, I signed a Commitment Agreement with eir in relation to its plans to provide High speed broadband to 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis. eir has committed to completing the rollout by the end of this year. Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at http://fibrerollout.ie/eircode-lookup/. A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department’s website www.dccae.gov.ie.
My Department is in a formal procurement process to select a company who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network in the State intervention area. That procurement process is now at an advanced stage. When the procurement process reaches a satisfactory conclusion for Government, a contract will be awarded and the network rollout will commence.
In the interim, practical initiatives will continue to be addressed through the work of the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce to address obstacles and improve connectivity in respect of existing and future mobile phone and broadband services.
Under this Taskforce, engagement between telecommunications operators and local authorities through the Broadband Officers is continuing to strengthen. These Broadband Officers are acting as single points of contact in local authorities for their communities. The appointment of these officers is already reaping rewards in terms of ensuring a much greater degree of consistency in engagements with operators and clearing obstacles to developing infrastructure. There is a link to a list of these local Broadband Officers on my Department's website.
