Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 November 2023
108. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications what provision can be made for a community (details supplied) that does not have access to fibre-optic broadband to each home on the road; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50744/23]
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 commercial operators investing in their networks, complemented by the State’s National Broadband Plan intervention. When taken together, all premises in the State will have access to high-speed broadband in every part of the country no matter how remote.
My officials have advised that houses in the area in the question are currently capable of receiving speeds of 90-100Mbps. In addition, this area was also recently fibre enabled as part of open eir’s upgrade programme and all 24 homes in Turnapin Green area are on the open eir fibre ordering system (available through any Retail Service Provider of open eir). Should any of the residents contact a Retail Service Provider and are told they cannot get access to greater than 30Mbps and/or fibre to their home, they should raise a query via the DECC webform at https://secure.dccae.gov.ie/forms/NBP-Customer-Service.aspx and DECC will escalate with open eir to investigate this matter further.
Commercial operators’ fibre rollouts are progressing at pace. Open eir have already passed over 223,600 homes and businesses in Dublin with gigabit services, with plans to pass a further c.358,000 homes and businesses over the next 2 – 3 years, bringing their total fibre-based investment in the county to over €216m. Other commercial operators are also continuing to increase their network footprint right across Dublin, with SIRO recently passing over 70,400 premises for full fibre, and Virgin Media passing over 488,700 premises.
Recent ComReg data shows that Quarter 2 of 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 substantially 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.
