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National Broadband Plan Implementation

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 14 February 2018

Wednesday, 14 February 2018

Questions (33)

Eugene Murphy

Question:

33. Deputy Eugene Murphy asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his plans to provide broadband to counties Roscommon and Galway further to the withdrawal of a company (details supplied) from the national broadband plan. [7252/18]

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Written answers

Currently some 15,000 premises in Roscommon and 77,000 premises in Galway have access to a high speed broadband service. Of these, around 2,300 premises in Roscommon and 10,800 premises in Galway have been passed as part of eir's on-going rural deployment of Fibre to the Home and can access a high speed broadband service of up to 1000Mbps.

Just over 24,000 premises in County Roscommon and some 57,000 in County Galway do not currently have access to a high speed broadband service. The Government's National Broadband Plan will deliver this service to every single one of these premises via a combination of commercial investment and a State led intervention.

6,000 premises in Roscommon will receive a high speed broadband service through eir's rural deployment before the end of this year, while the remaining 18,000 will be served via the planned State led intervention. In County Galway 18,000 will be served through eir's deployment while 39,000 come under the State intervention.

Other operators are delivering on commercial investment in these counties. SIRO, the Vodafone-ESB joint venture, are currently delivering fibre services in 2 Galway towns, Castlebar and Westport, with plans to roll out fibre services to Roscommon town and Cortober in County Roscommon.

As I outlined in my reply to an earlier question in the House today, my Department's procurement process to engage the company to roll out the high speed network in the intervention area is at an advanced stage. When this process reaches a satisfactory conclusion for Government, a contract will be awarded and the network rollout will commence.  

Delivering high speed broadband to every citizen in Roscommon, Galway and indeed every other county remains my firm commitment and that of the Government.

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