Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 October 2023
44. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the timeframe for the roll-out of at least 30mb broadband speeds to a location (details supplied) in County Donegal as part of the national broadband plan; if such areas with poor or no broadband coverage shall be prioritised during the roll-out phase as part of the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44105/23]
View answerIn December 2022, my Department published Ireland's Digital Connectivity Strategy which supports the ambition outlined in the National Digital Strategy and sets out a number of ambitious targets, including that:
• all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028
• all populated areas will be covered by 5G no later than 2030, and
• digital connectivity will be delivered to all schools and broadband connection points by 2023
These targets will be achieved through a combination of commercial investments and through the State investment in National Broadband Ireland (NBI).
Commercial operators’ fibre rollouts are progressing at pace. Eir is in the process of building a FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) network to 1.9 million premises. SIRO recently reaching a milestone of enabling 520,000 premises for full fibre, and is on track to reach 700,000 premises by 2026. Virgin Media recently announced plans to bring 2Gbps services to 345,000 premises, through an upgrade and expansion of their own network, and to bring gigabit broadband upgrades to 1 million premises.
The National Broadband Plan intervention contract provides for the roll out of a high speed and future-proofed broadband network to primarily rural areas. The intervention area covers over 1.1 million people living and working in over 560,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with some 679 schools.
The Government and NBI have agreed to accelerate the rollout of high-speed broadband to schools across the State in the Intervention Area. According to NBI, this acceleration will be complete by the end of 2023. This will ensure that all schools across the State will have the necessary infrastructure to carry out their critical day to day educational activities unimpeded by poor broadband. As of 29 September 2023, NBI reports that the necessary infrastructure is installed in 669 Primary Schools in the Intervention area with 29 installed by other operators as agreed with the Department of Education and the remaining installed by NBI. NBI reports that 484 schools have been connected and that 484 schools are live.
The school referred to in the question is part of the NBI rollout and I am informed by my officials that high-speed broadband has been connected to the school since April this year. However, we will engage with our colleagues in the Department of Education to ensure that the school is availing of the network provided by NBI.
Recent ComReg data shows that Quarter 2, 2023 saw a 7.4% increase in fibre broadband subscriptions compared to the first 3 months of the year, and a 33.7% increase when compared to Quarter 2 of 2022. This demonstrates that take-up of fibre connectivity for homes and businesses is increasing massively as it is deployed to areas where it had previously been unavailable. The same ComReg data also indicates that c.40% of homes and business throughout the State now have access to gigabit services through either fibre (576,856) or cable (359,669) infrastructure.
