Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 November 2020
238. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications if the National Broadband Plan contract includes fines for delays in the roll-out of the plan or financial incentives for accelerated roll-out; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33112/20]
View answerThe National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention will be delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) under a contract signed last November to roll out a high speed and future proofed broadband network within the Intervention Area which covers 1.1 million people living and working in the nearly 540,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with 695 schools. The NBI deployment is expected to be substantially progressed over the next five years with the majority of premises in the intervention area expected to have access to high speed broadband by that time. The Public Spending Code obliges public sector entities to ensure that contracts are managed and delivered to the specified standard, within budget and on time. The contract with NBI contains a comprehensive set of protections and legally binding obligations.
The contract requires significant monthly, quarterly and annual reporting of costs and revenues to my Department, with the subsidy released only upon achievement of contract milestones which are verified through an independent certification process.
The contract also provides that, in instances where NBI fails to achieve certain key performance indicators (KPIs), penalties can be applied in the form of a deduction to subsidy payments due. These deductions are based on clear and measurable requirements such as the time to connect a new customer with the service or the time taken to repair a fault or the download speed performance that a customer receives.
A series of Claw-backs in the contract were inserted to ensure that the tax payer gets value for money when savings are achieved or the financial performance of NBI is greater than forecast by “clawing back” subsidy in a number of circumstances.
The Programme for Government has committed to seek to accelerate the roll out of the National Broadband Plan. In this regard, my Department continues to engage with NBI to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of this rollout to establish the possibility of bringing forward premises which are currently scheduled in years 6 and 7 of the current plan to an earlier date. Exploring the potential to accelerate the network rollout is being undertaken in parallel with the measures required to mitigate delays arising as a result of Covid-19. The extent of this impact is currently being assessed and NBI has committed to put in place measures to mitigate the impact in as far as possible.
