Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
182. Deputy Patricia Ryan asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the reason that connection under the National Broadband Plan for homes in Lackagh Beg, County Kildare has been further delayed by a year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41869/22]
View answerThe 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 query raised in the Question in respect of Lackagh Beg, County Kildare. NBI has advised that the area is in the Curragh Camp Deployment Area, which will serve 3,321 premises under NBI’s fibre rollout under the National Broadband Plan. NBI has advised that the Engineering Surveys for this Deployment Area are complete and will now proceed to the design phase of the project.
Following the detailed survey and design work undertaken to date, NBI now has a greater understanding of the infrastructure upgrade work that will be required to serve these premises with high-speed fibre broadband under the terms of the contract. This work will be progressed by NBI’s infrastructure build partners over the coming year, and NBI anticipate customers will be able to place order for connection to the new fibre network between January 2024 to June 2024.
NBI has advised that they 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 fibre broadband build under the National Broadband Plan in Kildare, NBI has advised that approximately 1,200 premises are currently able to place orders for connection, over 3,500 are currently in the network build phase of the project, while a further 7,200 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.
