Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
134. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the reason that connection to broadband for a property (details supplied) has been delayed by a year with the complete date going from April 2023 to June 2023 to July 2024 to December 2024; the reason for this delay and if this delay time can be shortened [41232/22]
View answer144. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if his attention has been brought to a case (details supplied); the reason for the delays in connecting this premises under a partnership; the details of any engagement that he or his Department has had with National Broadband Ireland in 2021 and 2022 with regard to addressing delays in the roll-out of the plan and bringing forward solutions for affected premises; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41400/22]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 134 and 144 together.
The National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention will be delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) under a contract 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 almost 560,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with some 679 schools.
My Department has contacted NBI regarding the queries raised in the Questions. NBI has advised that the premises at Eircode H53H299 is within the Gurteen Deployment Area which covers 4,399 premises. NBI has advised that 67% of the Engineering Surveys for this Deployment Area are complete, including for Eircode H53H29, and now proceed to the design phase of the project. Following the detailed survey and design work undertaken to date, NBI has advised that they now have a greater understanding of the infrastructure upgrade work that will be required to serve the premises with high speed fibre broadband under the terms of the contract. This work will be progressed by their infrastructure build partners over the coming year, and NBI anticipate customers in the Deployment Area will be able to place orders for connection to the new fibre network between July 2024 to December 2024.
NBI has advised that the premises at Eircode H91X2CR is within the Inverin Deployment Area which covers 1,027 premises and the status of this Deployment Area is ‘Network Build in Progress’. NBI has advised that the current anticipated date where an order for fibre broadband connection can be placed for the Deployment Area is between April 2023 and June 2023. This updated information formed part of the revised build schedule agreed as part of the Updated Interim Remedial Plan (UIRP) with my Department and NBI for the current build year. NBI has advised that they have recently been communicating the detail in respect of the UIRP with end users who have registered for updates as part of their external communications and also made this information available on their website.
NBI appreciate the frustration that revised delivery dates can have for end users. NBI has added significant additional capacity and resources to their build team over recent months to recover from the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their deployment schedule. This will continue in the months ahead.
In respect of NBI’s fibre broadband build under the National Broadband Plan in County Galway, NBI has advised that, over 8,000 premises are currently able to place orders for connection, over 6,100 are in the network build phase of the project, while a further 6,800 have had Engineering Surveys completed to determine the nature of the build works required to service them. More information is available for the public on www.nbi.ie and members of the public can register for direct communications in respect of their Eircode at www.nbi.ie/eoi.
