Tosóimid le ráitis agus ceisteanna agus freagraí faoin bplean náisiúnta leathanbhanda. We will start with questions and answers and statements on the national broadband plan. This is a question and answer session. The statements will come second.
National Broadband Plan: Statements
I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I have written to the Minister of State, so I have given him notice of many of my questions on the national broadband plan. I thank him for the letter I received yesterday. To put it on the record of the House, my questions to the Minister of State, which were in December and he may address them in his answers, were whether his Department had been notified about whether the principal investors or funders of the national broadband plan were about to exit the deal in December, whether replacement funding was being sought, whether there were change of control provisions in place that required the Minister of State’s oversight if the principal investor were to exit the deal early, whether there were primary controls around milestone payments and the status of that from the Minister of State's perspective, whether the Minister of State was concerned about the ability of National Broadband Ireland, NBI, to continue if there was a cash flow issue, the visibility of the Minister of State and the Department over National Broadband Ireland’s finances, as well as its ability to sustain the cost of deployment, and the impact of Covid-19 on the national broadband plan in terms of the proportion delivered and what that was relative to expectations.
The Minister of State is aware of my questions. I thank him for the reply and I just wanted to make the House aware. Perhaps the Minister of State will acknowledge those questions and then I will have two or three more short questions for him.
I thank the Deputy. Within the contract, there is provision for early termination on both sides, and there are details around that. At this stage, we have no reason to expect that NBI will do anything other than continue to deliver the contract in full within the seven years for the maximum amount of money that was agreed. The figure of €2.1 billion is a maximum payment rather than a fixed payment.
There are milestone payments. The structure of the payments within this contract has been carefully detailed. The contractor is paid for the work that is done as we go along. For each number of homes connected, it receives a particular bonus. If it does not connect the homes, it does not receive any money. That is the structure of the contract. It is not such that the contractor will continue to receive payments month on month or year on year without delivering on its contract. Its payments are strictly linked.
There has been an impact from Covid-19. It has slowed the contractor down. It has made it several months later than it should be. However, that is not the entire story. Part of the problem is the contractor's fault. Part of the delay comes simply from the natural things that happen within the roll-out of a large contract, whereby there will be a period of time where you are developing momentum and becoming more skilled. I would expect that at least a portion of the delays are the fault of NBI. It may believe it is the fault of its subcontractors and may try to attribute blame, but that does not excuse it because it is not in a position to abdicate its responsibility. It must take responsibility, even in a situation where it has delegated authority for some of its functions. That is my answer to that.
I thank the Minister of State and for his answer and for his letter, which contained more responses.
I have two more questions. I saw yesterday in the Seanad that a number of 54,000 connections was mentioned. I think the milestone was set at 60,000 homes being ready for connection by the end of January, although I am open to correction on that. Is that correct? I am told that there are 34,000 and that the Minister of State can forward order another 20,000 that are not yet ready for connection. Is that accurate? What is the Minister of State’s own role in calling out the milestones?
What are the specific targets for 2022 at this point?
The Deputy will have received a detailed email showing all the progress so far just before Christmas, as did every Deputy and Senator. We will continue to update them on progress as we go along. The figure of 54,000 relates to homes that can order or pre-order. Homes that can order will get their fibre connected within ten days and those that can pre-order will get it within 90 days. That means that if all 54,000 homes ordered or pre-ordered today, they would have their connection within 90 days. That is where we are at. I expect the number available for order will be at 60,000 by March.
What about the 2022 targets?
The 2022 targets are under negotiation at the moment, although they are not targets exactly. The specific milestones and deliveries are set in the contract at the start so they are all there already. What we are negotiating now is what the projected actual delivery will be, given the delays experienced last year.
I am rapidly losing confidence in the roll-out of the national broadband plan. My concerns are slightly more micro than the business model. There is a community in east Mayo that is very entrepreneurial but also has many families living in it. Within this community there are three home-grown companies that export internationally. We have been working with NBI for some time to try to get a sense of when a fibre connection will go into these companies and into the community. This community recently lost all its banking services so we are told to do that online as well as access all Government services through gov.ie. NBI came back and told us it will be done between January 2025 and December 2026. That is not a window; that is a conservatory. That shows a lack of ambition.
I am concerned we are coming up to the last week of January and we do not have a sense of what connections will happen in 2022. The Covid excuse has to finish now. NBI keeps telling us it is working on the ground and we keep getting emails saying it is in our area, but the reality for this community is that jobs could be lost. One company wants to invest in an enterprise resource planning, ERP, system, which is a state-of-the-art technical system, and has a major investment plan but cannot do that because it cannot even get an interaction with National Broadband Ireland about its service. The complaint of this community is replicated across Mayo. Businesses are struggling nationwide. There is also an issue whereby, because this community is in an NBI area, even though there is an Eir cable going through the community and along the road, it cannot be connected because NBI might get to it in a two-year window between 2025 and 2026. What urgency is there? In the context of the Government's plans around remote broadband hubs and remote working, has the Minister of State engaged with NBI about putting more urgency into this delivery? Instead of getting so much spin and so much material, can we start to challenge NBI on what it is delivering on the ground?
I recognise there is huge and growing demand for fibre broadband across Ireland, much more than there was two years ago due to the pandemic. Everybody would like it tomorrow. It is a seven-year contract to connect 540,000 homes. We are two years in so there are five years left. A proportion of those homes are due to be connected in years 6 and 7, that is, 2025 and 2026. I can understand that people will be disappointed if they are in an area that is due in 2025 or 2026. That is not true of the whole of Mayo. A total of 11,373 homes have been surveyed in Mayo already and 4,033 are under construction, so they will have their service within a matter of months. Mayo is not one single deployment area but multiple deployment areas.
The Deputy asked what I can do to liaise with NBI. I am taking a very hands-on approach. I have been in nearly every county in Ireland in the past year. I have met the chief executive of NBI, Peter Hendrick, on many occasions. I also attended the two most recent board meetings of NBI. I facilitated a meeting between NBI and Eir's chief executive and chair to ensure I understood what communications there were between the main subcontractor and the contractor itself. I am examining everything we can do to accelerate the project. My absolute focus is on getting the volume of connections up to a point where the project is back on track. It is not okay that we were six months behind after the pandemic and then more months behind because of other delays, or that we announced a number at one point and then had to announce a smaller number within two months. That is going to inspire pessimism in people but I am optimistic. This happens with projects. There is sometimes a valley of doom period where you are very optimistic at the start but then people start to lose faith because they come across all the real-world problems, such as blocked ducts, phone lines that are down, and rivers and railway lines that have to be crossed. We will overcome that, we will accelerate, rejoin and get every home in Ireland connected to fibre-optic broadband. It is an incredibly optimistic and ambitious project but it is not over-ambitious. We are going to bring fibre-optic broadband to every house, premises and farm in Ireland.
I have just come running from a meeting with NBI. I will deal with two major questions. We have all seen the commentary, particularly in the Business Post, on the financial structures involved here. David McCourt has spoken about looking at different corporate structures or investors and there will be an element of communication with the Government on that. We need to ensure we can deliver the project, that the vehicle is fit for purpose and that this will not impact on NBI's ability to deliver. At this time, it looks like the person who was awarded the contract was awarded it despite the emperor having no clothes. He was able to put up huge expensive debt as equity. I ask the Minister of State to address that matter and the structure and then we will get onto the issue of the roll-out.
I understand there were multiple bidders in the process whereby the contract was awarded during the previous Administration. Finally, there was only one bidder because the other bidders dropped out and the contract was awarded to NBI. The terms of that contract stated NBI had to provide €100 million of investment as part of its investment in the project and a total of €175 million would be required over time. That €100 million did come in, plus another €20 million in the last two months. We are now at €120 million of investment from the investors and another €55 million is to be delivered. All of that has come in on time. There has been discussion of whether that €100 million is debt or equity. The vast majority of it - 99% - is in the form of a hybrid investment, which has characteristics of debt and characteristics of equity. In other words, it is a shareholder loan. At the end of the day, the investors had to come up with that money and they had to put it into the-----
Is the Minister of State happy that NBI is fit for purpose on the basis it has sufficient money to do business and there is no cash flow problem at this time?
I am happy that NBI is fit for purpose and has the ability and the money for this project.
I spoke to NBI about what can be done with regard to acceleration. Some 34,417 premises have now been passed. NBI says it will pass 60,000 by the end of March, although that was meant to have happened by now. I asked about the Covid delays and the acceleration. NBI has suddenly got rapid response teams and it can be done with them but there is a difficulty in dealing with Eir's "make ready" process. NBI says it will need Eir to be able to deliver quicker, or else it needs a self-install product whereby it could do the business itself and not have to call Eir back out to clear a blockage, because that is madness. It is saying it will now be six years rather than five, in the best-case scenario. What have the Department and the Minister of State done to ensure we can provide what NBI needs to deliver that acceleration?
I continue to facilitate meetings all the time with and between Eir and NBI. I look at whatever regulatory questions they have. I meet with them and ask what they want the Government to do differently. I analyse what they are doing and look at their reports. I am putting significant focus and energy into this and I am optimistic we will get this to work.
Does the Minister of State think he can deliver the self-installed product and ensure that Eir deliver faster? NBI is absolutely reliant on it.
I understand exactly what NBI and Eir's respective positions are. NBI says it wants more autonomy in how it works. If it puts cable through a duct which is blocked, it does not want to have to ask Eir for permission to unblock that duct. The irony NBI points out is that the company dealing with the blocking of the ducts is often the same as the subcontractor being used by Eir at the same time. Some paperwork goes back and forth and the same crew carries out the works. It has found that the duct network----
I have to stop the Minister of State there.
Is there a time limit?
There is a five-minute slot. I know it is awkward.
I will follow on from the query on financing. The Minister of State gave some details which seemed to contradict some of the information in the public domain. I ask the Minister of State why NBI's investors were permitted to fund the company through high-cost loans on which they will earn significant interest, instead of through the purchase of shares. It is reported that there was a €223 million investors' contribution and that it would be made by way of equity investment. In fact, it is reported that it was almost exclusively debt; some €221 million of debt. Those are the figures in the public domain. I ask the Minister of State whether they are accurate and what is the current state of affairs.
The sums of money are accurate. There is some misunderstanding on the description of the investment. A private-equity investor considers all of his or her investments are equity, whether they are pure shareholding or pure debt. In the case of the funding model for NBI or the investment model, this was agreed in the contract. It is funded with 12% interest loans, but they are shareholder loans. They are not the type of loans one might imagine.
If one was to lend money to somebody, one would expect to see a repayment schedule, start date and maturity date and might expect to see some kind of security. However, this loan is only repayable when half the network has been delivered or, in other words, when half the houses have been connected. It is only repayable after 2024 and if NBI is in profit. In other words, this is the kind of loan one makes to somebody which is repayable when one has it. That is a very different kind of proposition from being made a loan and needing to make repayments on certain dates.
When a shareholder loan is tied to the performance of a company, its characteristics are more like a shareholder. That is why it is sometimes called a participating loan. It is a form of hybrid investment and very commonly used in infrastructure. This type of investment was specified and delineated in the contract, along with the interest rate. It is not an incredibly profitable investment for the investors in that they get this 12%, whereas they can only get a much smaller amount. There is a risk profile here, which is very similar to the risk profile for a shared investment.
It was reported that NBI investors, largely David McCourt, were allowed to take approximately €38 million in fees out of NBI in 2020 to cover the costs incurred in the bidding process. That is reported. I ask the Minister of State whether that is the case and if so, whether it runs contrary to the project information memorandum, which clearly states on page 110 that bidders had to foot their own costs.
I am happy to clear this up. The project information memorandum for any Government contracts says that the investors pay their own bid costs. Indeed, the process of the bid went on for a number of years. It would have involved many millions of euro of investment and when the company won the bid and set up, it repaid the costs of the bid from the investors' own capital back to those same investors again, in proportion to the amounts of money they had spent. It is the repayment of expenses. It comes out of money put in by the investors. It is not in contradiction with the information note, which says the State does not pay the costs of the bidders. The investors pay their own costs back. Those costs have to be audited. It is a company that has audited accounts. There would be receipts for every piece of expenditure and that is the whole story.
I have to say I am concerned about the general attitude being taken by Government, with the fact the national broadband plan has missed every single target set for it up to this point. That is not acceptable. This contract is costing Irish taxpayers €3 billion. There should be no scope for failure, especially when one considers the price of failure for so many families, workers and communities waiting in anticipation of being connected to this network.
I appeal to the Minister of State to ensure we do not accept what I would consider in some instances to be fairly dubious excuses as to why those targets have not been met. The key question that has not been answered on the issue of the distinction between loans and investments equity and debt is why the investors would have chosen the loan route, if it is the exact same principle, which is, in essence, what the Minister of State said. Why did those people who were investing do so in the form of loans rather than equity?
The Deputy would have to ask them. This was the agreed investment structure from 2019. If they are international investors, it may suit their tax treatment in the jurisdictions in which they live. I do not know. Certainly, we got Ernst & Young to examine the investments and comment on the risk profile, which was similar to the investors having bought shares. It was acceptable at the time to people who signed the contract in 2019 and now my job as Minister of State is to ensure the terms of the contract are met and that the participants are doing all the things they have agreed to do in their contract. What they have agreed to do in their contract is to fund it in that way and that is how that is working. I cannot go back in time to change the contract or rewrite it.
That is a matter we have to explore further. I will return briefly to the fees that were paid to the investors. According to the public reports that have been referenced, of the €38 million in fees to investors, some €32.7 million was paid to a company, NBI Bidco LLC, which we are told is controlled by David McCourt and was set up about one week before the contract was signed. How could a company that was set up seven days prior be entitled to that sort of money?
There is a complex corporate structure to this, as there is with any multibillion euro contract. David McCourt-controlled companies were the ones that led during the bid. The other investors were putting up the money at a later stage, so it is natural that many of the costs of the bid were attributable to a company controlled by him. I understand the Deputy's question on how a company set up recently before the bid was awarded can be due to recover the costs. I would have to consult with the lawyers and see about that.
The movement of money in and out of the company is an audited process. It is an audited company and to break any of those rules would be a criminal offence. It is under great scrutiny and it is right that the Deputy asks these questions and the Business Post asks questions about it. That is the process of transparency and I am happy to answer any questions. If I do not have the detail on that one, I am happy to supply it to the Deputy from my office.
I would welcome that. With regard to NBI now, is the Minister of State satisfied he knows who controls the shareholdings, has the voting rights, holds the necessary investment and who is entitled to the necessary percentage of the dividends?
That, in particular, is the important question. Is the Minister of State satisfied that the Department is aware of the individuals and entities that control every percentage point of what is a substantial piece of infrastructure running across the country?
The ownership and the control of NBI are very specifically detailed in the contract. Ownership is defined there and control is defined there. NBI, if the Deputy is wondering about the dividends, is not a profitable company. It starts to make money when it connects a lot of people. Until a lot of homes are being connected, it will not be in profit. Metallah Limited is the holding company. NBI Infrastructure DAC, which is party to the project agreement with the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, is the entity responsible for the overall national broadband project. Finally, NBI Deployment DAC is the party to a subcontract with NBI Infrastructure DAC under which it is responsible for the design and build of the national broadband network.
I have a final quick question in relation to the fact that, from next week, NBI can be applied with penalties in respect of failing to reach targets. The difficulty is that up until this point the Department has essentially accepted the new so-called "milestones". How robust will the Department be in ensuring that there is a penalty applied for the failure to deliver on the substantial contract?
The Deputy has left no time for that.
I will apply all the penalties that are due.
We are running a bit behind and I may have to leave before my ten minutes is up.
There is a mounting degree of concern in relation to how NBI is running this contract and how it has been structured. The previous Deputy mentioned this and I would like a specific answer on it. If the Minister of State cannot provide it in the Chamber now, he can provide it in writing.
Granahan McCourt Dublin (Ireland) Limited was made the preferred bidder on 7 May 2019. Four days before it signed the contract, the name was changed to Granahan McCourt Dublin Limited and "(Ireland)" was dropped. The new company's directors were appointed on the same day. Deputy Ossian Smyth was not Minister or Minister of State at the time, but has he ever been given an explanation as to why that change in the structure of the preferred bidder took place? This was before we knew anything about Metallah or any of the background investors, or the pure investment structures. This was purely on the preferred bidder. At the inception point of this, there was a change four days out which may seem small - the dropping of a word. Maybe there is a simple explanation for it, but we need that explanation. Everything that has happened since would indicate that maybe there is not a simple explanation and that this was maybe the first move in what has become a Byzantine investment structure that is now running a €2.97 billion investment project - the biggest investment project in the history of the State. If the Minister of State could answer that first, I would appreciate it.
As the Deputy said, it was in 2019 that this contract was agreed and signed and it precedes me, but I understand that there were multiple bidders and then a particular company structure was set up to be the vehicle or entity that signed the deal with the Government. I do not know if the Deputy is wondering whether there is something untoward about that or there was something wrong, or that the bidder should have been of exactly the same name as the company that signed the contract at the end. I think the latter is the Deputy's question.
Yes. I seek an explanation for it.
I think there is a discrepancy between the name of who was bidding and whose name was on the contract.
Why was the name change made? Why were the directors only appointed four days before, when they had had a successful bid?
This process was agreed with the advisers at the time. The Deputy is not bringing this to my attention for the first time. Rather than say something that is inaccurate on something that is a very complex process, I will give Deputy Duncan Smith an answer in written form if that is all right.
I will accept that.
The Minister of State mentioned that he has had meetings with the board of NBI. The membership of the board of NBI is not published on its website. I accept it is not a semi-State agency, but it is the practice in big semi-State agencies for us to know who is on the boards. We know who is on the board of almost every organisation that has any interest in the public good or public services in this country. In this case, we do not. Instead, we have another biography of Mr. David McCourt, as the chair of the board. Given the size of this investment and given how important it is, this is something I have asked the company. It just said that it would take my comments on board. It is not easy for anybody to go and check who the board of directors of this important company are. It does not help with the transparency.
That is a reasonable question. That information is on the website today. I looked at it a while ago and that has been rectified. If it was not on it, it is there now. I met the board, first at a virtual meeting and then at a physical meeting where I actually met all of them. Deputy Duncan Smith is correct. All of the names of the people on the board have to be published and have to be known.
They do. I will double-check if that is the case because I checked it a couple of hours ago in advance of this and I did not see it. I will check again.
I would rather be here talking about the many local issues that I and my party colleagues have in relation to the roll-out and how far behind it is but we are not there with this. There are too many questions.
The €50 million that was paid in fees and interest payments last year has prompted the Department to ask William Fry and EY to examine the funding structure of NBI at a time when, at committee and in response to parliamentary questions, etc., we are being told how far behind the roll-out is. I accept Covid had an impact but, on further interrogation in committee meetings, it does not tally that Covid is responsible for all of the level of delays and problems.
We are very concerned about Ireland being on the hook with an investment and corporate structure that has the potential to fleece the public purse. That is what it does, if they are not to deliver.
I believe the Minister of State's commitment in delivering this and making sure it is delivered, but we were talking all week about flexible work, about people working from home and, in a committee yesterday, about regenerating rural towns and villages and having people being able to live and work there. This is the lifeblood of any of that being a success. With this being so far behind and so far delayed and with the many questions that are popping up on a near monthly basis in relation to the finances, who or what investment firms are behind these companies and where those investment firms are based, is the Minister of State confident that the investment firms that are backing up NBI are in it for the long haul? This has been compared to landmarks in progression such as the ESB rural electrification programme and getting a telephone into every house but all those companies, be it ESB or Telecom Éireann, were State companies in it for the long haul at the time. I do not in my gut feel that this crowd are in it for the long haul.
In his first question, the Deputy talked about the State, the taxpayer or the Government being on the hook for large payments, and said that the service not being delivered was the fear. That is absolutely a fear with any infrastructure project. That is probably the idea that those who drafted or agreed the contract had in mind to use a private company to subcontract it out so that the risk would be transferred. The company only receives money when it does things. There were some subsidy payments for setting up the network originally and for various milestones met and now they only get money when they connect homes. That is how the risk is reduced. They have a big incentive to connect as many homes as possible. When they connect a home they get a subsidy payment but they also get payment for anybody who connects to the network - they get a revenue stream. They have an incentive, not only to get the fibre to go past people's homes but also to get them to take up the service.
We have paid out €177.5 million in subsidy so far. The maximum subsidy we have agreed to pay out is €2.1 billion. The Deputy can see that is the proportion spent so far. We have another €480 million in contingency funds, which was in the budget but not in the contract. The company has no entitlement to that but the Government has that in its budget if it needs to find some other way if it comes across unforeseen problems or for some reason it needs extra money on the project.
The Deputy also asked whether the investors are in this for the long haul. NBI can decide that it wants to bring in new investors with the consent of the Minister. It can come back to the Department stating that it wants to fund itself with longer term investment and it wants to go for lower interest longer term investors.
If it wants to do that, we will examine that and give it consent if it thinks it is a good idea. That is certainly possible but it has not yet come to us with anything.
I raise two issues I am concerned about, one of which the Minister of State and I discussed previously in the context of oral questions. It relates to my constituency and those of the Minister of State and Deputy Duncan Smith, and to all those quasi-rural parts of Dublin that have not been covered. Will the Minister of State identify where they are being brought up to speed to ensure they will be included in the wider roll-out of the scheme? He will know the areas I am talking about, such as Rathmichael in his constituency, and Glencullen, Ballybetagh and Kiltiernan in my constituency. The Minister of State might address that question before I follow up with a further set of questions.
Dublin is not excluded from the NBP. The NBP applies to anyone who cannot get 30 Mbps of broadband from a commercial provider, and that certainly applies to places such as Glencullen and Stepaside, and even more so in Fingal, north County Dublin. According to the figures in front of me, 3,604 premises in Dublin are under construction at the moment as part of the national broadband plan. Moreover, SIRO is quite active in those areas, working with the ESB and Vodafone. It has passed 400,000 homes and will connect a further 320,000 homes. Virgin Media is upgrading all 900,000 of its customers to fibre, while Eir has committed to upgrading hundreds of thousands more of its customers to fibre as well. The commercial area is expanding all the time at the edges of the city and, at the same time, the national broadband plan is open to anybody who cannot obtain a commercial service.
With regard to that commercial service and how it overlaps with the national broadband plan, this is an increasing phenomenon, particularly over recent years with so many people working remotely. The Minister of State mentioned Stepaside, which, as he will be aware, is where I live. In the cul-de-sac where I live, there are 40 homes and, during the pandemic, only two of us, namely, a nurse and I, were going into work. The rest all worked from home. Many of them will continue doing so, and rightly so because it is a great option for them.
Nevertheless, we have seen the impact on the strength of the connection. When between 60 and 80 people in a small cul-de-sac are all online at the same time, there will be a drain. This is an area with nominally strong coverage but the issue will become a phenomenon. We want people to work remotely and from home, not just outside Dublin but in suburban Dublin in particular. What efforts can be made to partner more effectively with the commercial providers to ensure those gaps will be filled? There is a cul-de-sac in Ballinteer where the connection is perfectly fine for houses on one side of the road, while on the other side, there is zero chance of making any calls with video and so on, something that is increasingly important to so many people working in a range of areas for global employers. That is a great concern as we come out and, I hope, stay out of this pandemic.
Where can the national broadband plan work with commercial partners not just to identify those gaps but to fast-track their resolution? This is an immediate problem and, indeed, an historical one for many people over the past 18 months. The Minister of State talked about efficiency and it is great to hear announcements that broadband has arrived in X or Y but, in the places that have connectivity, if that connectivity is not fit for purpose, it will cause much more damage and do so more immediately.
The Deputy spoke about the differences between people's nominal broadband speeds and what they actually get, and the fact that, if many people suddenly start to work from home, the service will degrade for everybody because they are sharing a pipe at some point upstream. That is a real concern and we are working on it. Any Deputy who wants to meet the head of the national broadband plan in the Department can do so and can go through any issues he or she has. That offer always stands.
The Deputy went on to speak about the possibility of having a link-up between NBI and commercial providers. There are many black spots in urban areas, and where that happens, I expect it would make more sense for NBI not to bring in its own fibre but to pay one of the commercial providers to extend from next door to cover the black spot. NBI is in negotiations with more than one provider about that. There are three commercial providers, so I expect those black spots will be filled.
The ambition is to get gigabit fibre to everybody and to get away from copper. Fibre to the cabinet was good enough until two years ago but now it is not and people want to have fibre to their homes. The ambition is to get fibre to everybody's home, whether in an urban or rural area. Only 22% live in a national broadband plan area, while 78% live in the commercial areas.
I welcome the debate and thank the Business Committee for acceding to it. Some of us have spent weeks of our lives on this issue over the years as members of both the line committee and the Committee of Public Accounts, forensically examining this and going through the process, which was flawed. Indeed, the Green Party was on this side of the House at the time. One bidder remained at the end of the process but we could not even figure out on the eve of the signing of the contract what the entities of that bidder were. We got commitments that the contract would be published but it has not been published in full. There was only one bidder, so I cannot see why there would be any commercial issues. Will the Minister of State publish the contract in full? We need to be able to evaluate it for ourselves.
I bow to the Deputy's experience. I am sure she was deeply involved in the process and knows a lot about what was involved and what the arguments were regarding what kind of contract there should have been. As I said, however, the contract has been signed and I have to execute it.
The major investors in NBI are Granahan McCourt, the Tetra Corporation, Oak Hill Advisors and Twin Point Capital, along with members of the senior management team of NBI and some smaller investors. They constitute the major investors-----
Will the Minister of State publish the contract in order that we can see it?
I will publish as much of the contract as I legally can. It is a huge contract, running to 2,200 pages or so, and there are legal constraints. A large portion of the contract was published before I assumed office, and I have asked the Department to review with the lawyers how much more of it they can publish within the law. The Deputy will appreciate that I am constrained by the law. We have a system of law and I have to comply with the laws that exist.
We also have a need for transparency and information, which I think the Minister of State will accept. The Currency produced the corporate structure, the names of which the Minister of State listed, and it has been described as Byzantine. It does not fill us with confidence, given we did not have any in the first instance, about the ability of the company to deliver broadband to the extent that was required and within the terms of the contract and how it was going to be funded.
Eir has passed about 45,000 premises in the intervention area. The providers are, potentially, in competition with one another and compensation can be paid where duplication occurs. Has that compensation yet arisen and is the Minister of State concerned about it?
This issue is sometimes described as encroachment, where we have defined and agreed an intervention area. A commercial provider is allowed; it is not an exclusion area. A commercial provider is allowed to connect homes in the area if it wants to and thinks it makes sense. The Deputy stated 45,000 homes in the intervention area have been connected by Eir, and while I cannot validate that number, that is 45,000 homes that now have fibre broadband. I understand it is also the intention of NBI to bring fibre to those homes. It has the option under the contract to seek a compensation payment where encroachment happens if it can show it has lost money as a result, although the provider has told me that is not its intention in that case. Moreover, there is a limit to how much money can be paid out under that compensation scheme for encroachment.
I would prefer homes to receive two options of broadband. If a commercial provider provides fibre access within the intervention area and later goes bust, NBI will still have to continue to provide a service for 25 years.
It is contractually obliged to provide fibre-optic broadband to 540,000 homes in the intervention area, whether or not there is a commercial company providing it. If I were a homeowner in that area, I would be happy if there was more than one provider.
The point of the intervention area was that it was an area that was not commercial. Eir was one of the entities in the process and, from memory, it had spent about €7 million by the time it dropped out. The key issue is that we get everybody connected that needs to be and wants to be connected. However, within the plan, there is the encroachment area and compensation can be paid. It is absolutely valid for us to keep an eye on that and to ask questions on it.
It is.
We are close to 5 February, where there would be the requirement to determine what numbers are to be delivered within the next year - in any case, it is in or around the beginning of February. Where is the Minister of State on that? When are we going to know the numbers that are going to be delivered? The Minister of State talked about negotiating. I get worried when I hear that. This is not a two-way thing. Given this terribly complicated way of doing things, the Department should be dictating the process. The capacity to deliver should have been predetermined because it is a contract over seven years, although there was some time lost. What kind of figures has the Minister of State in mind and when are they going to be published? We need to be able to track that.
I expect we will have revised numbers within two weeks. As to whether it is a negotiation, I am saying that from my mindset. Everything in my life is a negotiation, even right now. The Deputy is right. The Government has this contract, which is a €2.1 billion contract, and it only pays out the money when the company meets the terms. That is where we are at the moment. The company is required to meet its contractual obligations, no matter what and whether we have a conversation with it or not. If it does not meet them----
Will that be done within the next two weeks?
Within the next two weeks.
I am conscious of time and there are a few issues I want to get in. Terminology is very important. We were very conscious of that when we were debating for a very long period of time, backwards and forwards, the number of houses or premises passed and the number connected, which is very different. The number connected is actually very low in comparison to the numbers passed. We need to stop talking in circles on this kind of thing. We need to have monthly figures to give us clarity on what exactly is being delivered. There is a difference between the two of those. We need constant updates and I do not see why it would not be routinely put on the website so we can see it.
Who signed the contract? Were the Department and the then Minister aware of the method of funding this initiative by the investors? Was the Minister aware it was going to be as convoluted in terms of the means for these expensive loans, for example? I cannot get my head around how anyone would take out a loan for 12.5% when they are looking at Europe-wide interest rates being so low. How would that make a contract like this competitive? It just does not make sense to me. If people are really invested in something, they will invest their money in it, but this does not read like that, given the structure and funding are so convoluted and Byzantine. In fact, what it is doing is undermining the limited confidence that was there in the first instance.
It is all very complex, both the construction and the funding. I will start with the construction. The Deputy talked about the different statuses. The first one is where people are being surveyed. The second is where their connection is under construction. The third is where it is available for pre-order and, in other words, people can be connected to the Internet within 90 days. The fourth is where it is available for order and people can be connected within ten days. The fifth is when they are actually connected and they have taken up the service. The target is to have 540,000 homes passed or, in other words, all available for order. That is the 540,000. It is not 540,000 homes that have taken up the offer of broadband but 540,000 homes that have fibre-optic cable outside at their kerb, available for them to connect within ten days. That is the time it takes for NBI to get from the kerb and tunnel under a person's driveway, or whatever it is, and put it into their home. Those are the five statuses.
All of those numbers should be published on the website every month. Most of them are published, and we send around monthly updates. If there is anything missing, there is no reluctance to provide any of that information on as regular a basis as possible. It is very important to do that because, otherwise, how can we measure how the roll-out is going? I absolutely agree with that.
The Minister of State is out of time.
I ask the Minister of State to come back to me on that.
I presume it is signed by the Minister. I will come back to the Deputy on any detailed questions about the contract.
I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber and for facilitating this question and answer session. I wish to raise two items, one in regard to the deployment areas and the second in regard to delivery of service. There is a situation just outside Castlebar where some premises are in a precarious position, with some townlands ready to go live, whereas, just across the road, there are house owners who have been informed it will be 2025 or 2026 before they get connected. My understanding is that the roll-out would be very much based on a hub and spoke model, with the roll-out progressing outwards from the urban areas. In this case, it certainly does not feel like a hub and spoke model.
In Breaffy, which is on the outskirts of Castlebar, there are 77 premises ready for pre-order and another 27 premises which have surveys pending, along with another segment of 118 premises. It appears there are three separate deployment areas in the one townland and all moving at different paces. One can imagine the frustration when people talk to their neighbours in regard to who is connected and who is not. It is similar in other villages and townlands. In Manulla, for example, there are 257 premises where it seems nothing will happen any time soon and surveys are still pending.
I would like to get the Minister of State's understanding on this issue because we constantly hear the beat of the drum about the NBI website in terms of people entering their Eircode and looking for more information. It infuriates people when they cannot even get access to the website. I ask that we address the issue around the deployment areas, which is an important one.
Second, on the delivery element, there is the issue of annoyance for people around the pace and the resistance of NBI to either provide information or even to engage with public representatives. I put in a request to NBI on 7 December in regard to County Mayo and it was 27 January before I got a response, even excluding the two weeks at Christmas. However, I did get the information eventually and I want to put that on the record of the House.
The information related to the 37,758 premises covered under the contract. It is a significant amount of work and it is the third-largest customer base for NBI after Cork and Galway. Of that, 3,348 are currently available for pre-order, which is roughly 9% of the plan. They are located on the outskirts of Ballina and Castlebar, with 1,464 for Ballina and 1,884 for Castlebar. In Mayo, there are 696 with the network built or in progress, which is 1.8% overall. There are 3,726 premises that have their engineering surveys under way, which is 10.1% of the planned intervention. Over 6,442 premises have their engineering survey planned, which is 17% of the planned interventions. Although I am running out of speaking time, I want to put this information on the record of the House. That leaves over 22,564 premises out of the 36,758 with the engineering survey pending.
How will efforts be significantly ramped up to get a large proportion of premises surveyed? What are the Department and NBI doing to get more people on the ground to implement the ramp-up strategy?
There are 227 deployment areas. They do not match the boundaries of townlands. They split across many administrative boundaries. There is a situation where at the border of a deployment area, one house will be connected and another house is in a later phase. That is frustrating for anybody in that situation. That is a consequence of the design. Part of the design is that construction happens in every county simultaneously. That was a political decision at the start. From an engineering point of view, one might have started in one place and gone outwards, but it was decided that construction would happen everywhere for equity. How do we speed it up? Do we need more resources? I visited the headquarters of KN Network Services and asked if it wanted the Government to be involved in training more people for installation. I have spoken to all the different commercial providers, to the subcontractors of NBI, and to NBI. There are problems getting staff and training people in every sector of the economy. I want to make sure that there is a pipeline of people available so that if, in a year, we want to deploy twice as many crews, those crews and vehicles will be available, as will machines such as poling machines for telegraph poles, of which only so many are available in the country.
I am doing everything that I can to accelerate the broadband plan, first, to get it back on track and then to move it faster. A year ago, I was one of the only people in the country who was very optimistic about the roll-out of the vaccination programme. At that time, everybody felt it was going to take years. In fact, it was very successful.
The Minister of State's last remark is unwarranted. He compared the roll-out of the vaccination programme to the debacle that we are talking about today. The goals of the NBP are laudable, but on every level, it fails at every metric. It is a disgrace. Most citizens feel that they are being bled, as if they are some kind of gombeens, for more than €3 billion of taxpayers' money through a series of convoluted company and corporate structures that hoodwink us into believing that, somehow, this will be done quickly and efficiently. In 2010, the Minister of State's colleague, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, announced the roll-out of a broadband plan with great aplomb. It is 2022 and we are witnessing a debacle with the roll-out of that plan.
In 2019, when the Government announced that it would go down the path it took, it met with fierce resistance from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, on the basis of cost, affordability, value for money and Exchequer risks. It expressed concern that the State would not own the infrastructure after this €3 billion investment and the work is completed. How can the Minister of State stand over this politically? I am not asking him to answer with legal niceties. I am asking a political question about how he, as a Green Party Minister of State, can stand over the robbery of taxpayers' money to this extent without delivering a service.
I thank the Deputy. It is not a €3 billion contract; it is a €2.1 billion contract. I have read many estimates of what the cost is or is predicted to be and many different numbers are thrown around. The maximum expenditure on this contract will be €2.1 billion. That is what is in the contract. The contract was agreed in 2019, a year before I took office, and it is my role as Minister of State to implement what is in the contract. The benefits of the contract are huge and very ambitious. They are no less than to bring fibre-optic broadband to every home, farm and business premises in the entire country. We know from the past two years that this is like providing an extremely basic utility that allows rural villages and towns to be revitalised, to become vibrant again and to bring jobs into them in a way that we had never considered previously. In the past, if we wanted to bring jobs or study places into a village or a town, we had to think about building a factory. Now, people are returning to their home towns, working there, bringing money there, and returning to their family locations because of fibre-optic broadband.
Some 55,000 families in Ireland can now apply for fibre-optic broadband in the intervention area. Deputy Catherine Murphy tells me that another 45,000 can get fibre-optic broadband from Eir in that area too. We will reach all 540,000 premises, including homes, farms and business premises, across Ireland, and provide them with a level of service that is unimaginable across Europe. The rest of Europe is not doing this. It is providing wireless access for the remotest parts of rural areas. We are providing a service that will allow people to study, work, conduct their commercial and social lives, and obtain Government services no matter where they live in the country. It is balanced regional development. It is a social, high-tech project. I am proud of it and I am delighted to be in charge of it. I am using all of my energy and enthusiasm to make sure that it is delivered.
I asked the Minister of State how he would politically stand over this debacle and the use of the quoted amount of €3 billion of taxpayers' money. Not all of it is necessarily contracted, but there is extra spending, such as on competitive outsourcing, which costs millions of euro. Millions of euro more will probably trip us up. It is interesting that much of the information about corporate structures of this project was not known to us. We now know that there is a network of at least 13 companies across Ireland, Luxembourg and the US. We know that David McCourt's firm only owns approximately 10% of NBI despite all these convoluted corporate structures. The map of the structures for the plan and the companies that are in it puts the London Underground in the ha'penny place. I do not see how the Minister of State can understand it or grasp it. We now know that a vulture fund has invested heavily in it. In its regulatory documents in the US, the vulture fund describes itself as specialising in leveraged loans, high-yield bonds, private credit, distressed investment and collateral loan obligations. This is shameful for the Government.
That is why I am asking the Minister of State the political question again. How can he stand over this? Given that the commercial terms of the contract have been redacted, how can he give any guarantee that the 500,000 premises, including homes and businesses, will have this delivered to them? He just spoke eloquently about the freedom that it will give them and the good future that they will have. How can he guarantee that this will be delivered in ten, 15 or 20 years? The pace is appallingly slow. It is tied up in corporate knots and legalities that would confuse any Minister. The Minister of State should not tell me that he is not confused by it.
The Deputy asked how I can politically stand over it. I can politically stand over it because it will bring huge, tangible benefits all around the country. It is a fantastic project and it is comparable with rural electrification. If people want a home in Ireland nowadays, they want to know that they have home heating, running water, electricity and broadband. All of those will be available. It is a basic service that allows for a better quality of life. That is why I am happy to stand over it. Regarding investors and the complex structure, the financial structure of the company has not changed since the contract was signed. It is a matter of public record. It is right that people examine it and ask questions and query it, but the main investors continue to be Granahan McCourt, Tetrad Corporation, Oak Hill Advisors, Twin Point Capital and shareholders from the management team of NBI. Consent from the Department needs to be requested to make changes to that structure. That structure was put in place in 2019 and it has not changed.
The Deputy has said that these companies are capitalists, investors in short-term debt, that they are linked with hedge funds and so on, and I am sure that is all true. That is what the system is when a private company does work for the State. It has private investors that are trying to make a profit. At the same time, it cannot make that profit unless it connects everybody to rural broadband in Ireland. That is what the terms of the contract state.
The Minister of State's comparison with the electrification of the country is interesting, because I made it in the committee when this was being debated during the previous Dáil. A former Minister had to resign from his position because of an alleged scandal around it.
The key difference is the one he just quoted, which is that we did not rely on private, competitive, for-profit enterprise to electrify this country. The State built a State-owned, State-run company called the ESB, which built Ardnacrusha and Table Mountain and turned the lights on up and down this country. If we were waiting for this kind of model, we would all be still sitting in the dark and this Chamber would be lit by candles. That is my point about the broadband plan. I have asked how the Minister of State can stand over it and he still has not answered. It is disgraceful that he is not answering me and explaining how a Green Party Minister can stand over this rip-off of taxpayer's money where, at the end of the process, we will still not own the infrastructure. I ask him to please address that point.
There really is a comparison here with the rural electrification programme. My grandfather worked on the Shannon electrification scheme, the massive hydropower project of the 1920s. It was his first job and he was employed by Siemens because it was Siemens that did the work. That company was brought in to do it. The work was not carried out by civil servants or even by a private Irish company. It was built by Siemens and that is the reality of what happened.
The Deputy has asked me again but I have twice told her how I can stand over this project. I can stand over it because of the benefits that it brings. It is a hugely beneficial project that every Deputy in this House knows is essential. Anybody who lives outside a major urban centre knows that broadband is essential to people's quality of life and that is why I can stand over it.
I welcome the opportunity to engage with the Minister of State on this very important subject for rural Ireland. I was in the Department in the previous Government when the contract was signed and I supported it wholeheartedly because it is going to be a game changer for Ireland in the context of regional development. I still stand over the fact that if we had not signed the contract then, there are 55,000 connections that would not have been made now.
There are issues with the project. It is a large, seven-year contract but it is my understanding that the majority of connections will be made within the first five years. The contract was signed in 2019 but we have had Covid for the past two years, which has been very disruptive. That said, a lot of people realised during Covid how important it is to have a proper broadband connection in their homes. They could see it first-hand when they could not work from home because they did not have broadband. It created huge problems. However, the broadband connection points and the hubs that have been set up with the help of the Western Development Commission and the Department of Rural and Community Development were asset-building exercises that have provided some relief for people.
The frustration for people now is that the project is not moving as fast as they would like. I make inquiries on behalf of constituents as to when broadband will be available in their area and often the reply I get back is that it will be some time in 2024 or 2025. We need to be sharper in our plans and in the targets we are setting. We also need to accelerate the work, now that restrictions have been lifted. In that regard, I am concerned about the relationship between Eir and NBI. Is the existing Eir network as bad as people say? If so, is this a factor in the delay in rolling out broadband to houses? What is being done by Eir to rectify this problem, if it is a problem?
First, I will answer the Deputy's question about the communication of connection times to people, which is of great interest to them. When I was appointed last year, the website for NBI only contained timelines for those people who would be connected within the next 18 months. After that, people were only told that it would be "some time" in the future. I ask for detailed information to be provided, even if that meant that people were being told they would be connected in 2024, 2025 or 2026. I wanted people to be provided with that information so that they could plan, so that they could know that they would need something else in the meantime or that they would not be able work from home during that period. It is a seven-year project so if people are told that their connection will be in year six or year seven, they are going to be disappointed, naturally, unless we can accelerate it.
The Deputy also asked about the relationship between Eir and NBI and about the quality of Eir's existing network. The company does not really know what is going to be in a duct underground until it opens it up. NBI has said that it has found that the ducts are in worse condition than expected, based on its initial survey of sections of the network and that many ducts are blocked. Eir has had a large number of owners over a relatively short period. Some of those owners were short term and they did not invest for the long term and as a result, the Eir network requires a lot of investment. The company is committed to that. A new chief executive will be appointed in the coming weeks and I look forward to meeting him. I will speak to him in the same way that I spoke to his predecessor. The current chairman will remain in place and I will continue to speak to him too. There will be a lot of dialogue between me and Eir, between NBI and Eir and between me and NBI and we will do everything we can to make sure that Eir and NBI deliver on what they are required to do and that they accelerate that delivery.
It is a source of concern that the infrastructure is not to the required standard. I understand that as part of this contract, nearly €1 billion will be given to Eir for the use of its infrastructure. The contract is for €2.1 billion, plus a contingency that brings it closer to €3 billion and of that, more than €900 million is going to Eir for the use of its existing infrastructure. Let us call a spade a spade here. It is time for Eir to wake up and smell the roses. It must come to the table because it is getting a hell of a lot of money out of this contract. It must make sure that it does not put any impediments in the way of progress and, indeed, remove any impediments that do exist.
When Eir was setting out to provide broadband connections to houses in rural Ireland, it connected in circles but left large pockets unconnected, where 100 m would have made the difference between connecting houses and not connecting them. That is the way Eir left it and that is why we have a national broadband plan. That is why the State has to do this. We need to be a bit more forthright and rather than just talking to Eir, we need to point out that it has a responsibility to the people of Ireland to make sure that its infrastructure is right. It is getting a hell of a lot of money out of this contract. As the Minister of State said, there have been a lot of short-term owners who took their money and ran but the people will not tolerate that anymore. It is very important that people in rural Ireland are given assurances that there will be no impediments to progress. If ducts have collapsed, they must be fixed. Surveys were done two years ago. NBI personnel were out in their vans, assessing the quality of the infrastructure. We need to move fast to remove any impediments that exist. There must also be a better working arrangement between Eir and NBI to relieve any blockages.
The Deputy has identified a key difference between the national broadband plan and the commercial delivery of connectivity, which is the reason the NBP was developed. When commercial providers such as SIRO, Eir, or Virgin, for example, go around the country to connect homes, they connect the low-hanging fruit, the commercially-viable and easy-to-access homes. Once they meet something that makes connection not worth it such as a railway line, a river or some other obstacle, they just go up another road instead. As the Deputy said, this has meant that lots of people all over the country were left out. NBI does not have that option. This is a universal service and NBI has to connect every home in the deployment area to get the payment. The threshold is 100%, which makes it much harder. The cost is much higher than the cost per home of the delivery of the previous commercial providers. That is the essential difference between commercial and non-commercial provision.
The Deputy pointed out that a large proportion of the subvention money is to go to Eir as a subcontractor but that money will go out over 25 years. NBI will take in revenue by way of charges on people who have connected to the network.
The major part of the income from NBI will not be from the State but from the people who are being provided with a service. The company will use that money to pay Eir for the rental of its poles and ducts over a period of 25 years. It is giving Eir a long-term future for its rural broadband network. All the unblocking of ducts, putting up new poles and replacing old ones is investment and strengthening its network. From Eir's perspective, this also makes sense. We need to ensure that these incentives are properly aligned. Eir gets a long-term future for its rural network and, at the same time, people living in rural Ireland are able to get fibre-optic broadband through NBI. That is the alignment of the two.
The Minister of State mentioned other providers and low-lying fruit. I can vouch for that. In my town of Tuam a company came in and put in fibre-optic broadband. It did housing estates and so on but the centre of the town has not been done because the company encountered a few problems and decided it would not do it. I am six months trying to even get them to communicate with me. The centre of the town has no fibre-optic connection but we have it on the housing estates. That is great for the housing estates but it is laughable for the businesses in the centre of the town. It is a private company, which will tell us that it can provide something for everybody. The advertising of it leaves me frothing at the mouth at times.
Eir and the private companies will benefit from this national broadband plan as well as customers throughout the country. As the Minister of State said, there has to be a massive realignment of the thinking within these corporations to ensure that this is not a pastime for them. It is real and we need to get on with it.
Of the 453 live connection points, how many are in counties Carlow and Kilkenny? I would like the Minister of State to examine this issue,
Has an independent study into the potential role of next-generation low-earth orbit satellites to deliver high-speed broadband to rural Ireland been conducted? In the past 18 months, enormous strides have been made in the provision of global satellite-based high-speed broadband. Is the Government actively encouraging and supporting the provision of high-speed broadband via low-earth orbit satellites to premises in the intervention area, especially where the NBP spans and waiting times for services are likely to be significant?
I do not have the number of broadband connection points, BCPs, in County Carlow but I will get those to the Deputy directly. As she said, there are more than 400. Most of the points are funded through the Department of Rural and Community Development under the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, who has a lot of enthusiasm for the connection of broadband connection points. They provide an option for someone who needs broadband. It is a fill-in measure while they wait for the fibre to reach their home. It means there is an office in the village that they can work from whether in a GAA or church hall or community centre. The BCPs are very valuable and I will get back to the Deputy with numbers for Carlow.
Low-earth orbit satellites are a rather new technology. We had Iridium and now we have Starlink. We are certainly considering where it fits into our overall broadband strategy. Is it something we should use widely or as a backup when cable is not available? I understand that the Starlink service is able to operate without a licence at the moment and is now deploying, and that people can opt for it. It is expensive. It is many times the cost of getting a fibre-optic broadband connection, which is typically €100 for connection and then €35 a month whereas a low-earth orbit satellite might cost €500 upfront and €100 a month. That is much more expensive but it might suit some people. It is certainly not a technology that we are ignoring. We consider it all the time. If the Deputy wants to ask more detailed questions, my office will be happy to answer.
I thank the Minister of State; I am happy with that. I will contact the office. In my home town of Carlow, and in Kilkenny, there have been huge issues around businesses getting broadband connections. As previous speakers said, there are connections in one part of a town but across the road there might not be. I know the Minister of State is committed as is the Minister for Rural and Community Development. However, Covid has totally changed the concept of working from home. These issues need to be addressed. I know that there is a commitment and the funding is there but the timescale needs to be examined. When will Carlow-Kilkenny be fully connected to the broadband network?
Returning to the Deputy's original question, there are ten BCPs in Carlow and 12 in Kilkenny. There are areas within the cities, such as Kilkenny city where broadband cannot be accessed. That applies everywhere. With the roll-out of high-speed fibre across rural Ireland someone who is not getting that connection and is in a broadband blackspot in the city will naturally be aggrieved. I am not only the Minister of State with responsibility for rural broadband but for all broadband. Some 78% are living outside in the urban areas and I have to make sure that everyone is provided with functional working broadband regardless of whether they are in the rural NBP area. I am committed to doing that.
The Deputy asked when everyone in Carlow and Kilkenny will have high-speed broadband. It is on the map on nbi.ie. She will see the different intervention areas. She can put in a particular Eircode but also click on the different areas and see what dates they are due to connect. She can find all that information.
There is nowhere on the map for those who cannot get a connection to see when there will be a connection. That is something I will address. I thank the Minister of State for his replies.
I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on broadband, a subject that has been spoken about in this House for many years. It is something that I became interested in from a community and voluntary perspective before I entered politics. We brought wireless-operated broadband to Goleen in Mizen Head, the last parish in Ireland, 15 or 16 years ago. We know some little thing about it; I am not trying to say that I am an expert.
The Minister of State said that it is moving quickly. I think it is moving at snail's pace for the delivery of broadband in west Cork in places such as Innishannon, which is very close to Cork city, as is Kilmacsimon, Bandon, Bantry, Coomhola, Clonakilty, Timoleague; I could go on naming them forever. People are coming to me from areas where there are maybe 20 or 25 houses who cannot get connected to the fibre-optic cable that is there.
The issue I want to focus on is the wireless operators. The Minister of State said he was very optimistic; I said I am not. He said he was looking at every solution. Has he sat down and spoken to the wireless operators who can immediately provide broadband to the areas that he might be looking to provide broadband to in five years? He should forget about five years. I have been asking for people to get broadband for ten years. It is not happening. We hear four years, five or six years and I feel like the time is getting longer every time we sit down around the table. These are the same communities that were promised this eight years ago. Let me take Baltimore. DigitalForge, Fasttrack Broadband and similar companies in west Cork were able to provide wireless broadband to places such as Baltimore. When Eir came to town with fibre, no one wanted to leave DigitalForge. They had a private operator and if there was ever a problem, they could pick up the phone and it was resolved straight away. It can offer something between 70 or 100 Mbps or maybe for a business it can offer more on a wireless setting. That can be offered anywhere in rural Ireland but they need to be funded.
Has the Minister of State opened communication with them? From what I can tell, we will be left with 5% of houses in rural Ireland that will not get a fibre connection. Who is going to connect them? The other problem is that the wireless operator is out there working his butt off trying to survive. He is providing the service to the town so that he can give broadband to the rural communities. The other operators are coming in and taking the rich pickings in the town. They are pulling all the town customers away from them. My worry is that they will pull the plug and in a year or two, many rural communities that had broadband will no longer have it because the wireless operator has been taken out.
Has the Minister of State put in protections to ensure those rural communities will continue to be connected? Has he sat down with the wireless operators since he came into office? What solutions does he have at present that he can tell us about? I have only two minutes left so I would appreciate it if he could answer those questions.
I thank the Deputy. I take his point about wireless operators. I have spoken to some such operators, but now that he says it, I could speak to more. It is a good point. Typically in rural Ireland, broadband is provided by a fixed wireless operator. Somebody erects a mast and it covers the valley. When I stayed in Ballydehob, I was able to get a perfectly good service from a wireless operator, so I understand. The idea with NBI is that when fibre comes to the area, the wireless operator can write to all their customers and say it is switching them over to fibre and it can take a payment as a reseller for the fibre in that area. Any of the wireless operator's customers who want to switch can do so and anyone who wants to continue can do that. I think the point the Deputy is making is that somebody might turn off their wireless service. Is that what he was saying?
The whole point is that, first, it does not look like the Minister of State has engaged properly with them. I respect that since he has plenty of time to do that in the days and hours ahead. The bottom line is we need to support the existing wireless operators. It was the same with previous Ministers. Nobody seems to care about this. The existing wireless operator can offer broadband down in the valley that nobody else will be able to offer for the next five years. He can put a base station at the top of the hill and it will reflect. That is why the Minister of State got broadband when he was in Ballydehob. I live in Schull, which is the town next to it. This is what DigitalForge and others have been doing out there. They have been providing broadband years and years ahead. What are we doing? We will tell the rest of the country to hang on for five years because the fibre will be coming and if it does they can tie into the fibre. Forget the fibre. For many people wireless is the way forward at present.
I need the Minister of State to talk to the wireless operators and find that solution. He needs to find that solution for the people who, five years down the line, are not going to be connected and who cannot come home and work and cannot come home and live. That is all I ask the Minister of State to do because nobody is talking about the wireless operator. They are all dreaming about five years down the line. I am not. I want the solution to today's problem.
Mind your blood pressure there now.
Sorry, a Cheann Comhairle.
The following is through the eyes of a teenager:
Being without broadband is like being without your voice in today's world. [That was said to me by a teenager recently.] Like it, love it, hate it. It is our window to the world of work, of education, of health, of leisure and just general family catch-up.
Unfortunately, this highlights again the big urban-rural divide. We have parts of Ireland that still have no broadband connection. A recent survey conducted by switcher.ie found towns and cities have broadband speeds up to 36 times faster than some rural parts of Ireland. We are currently waiting for 2 million premises to be connected to the NBI network and 18% of Irish homes still have no network. If we can look at broadband as a way of dispersing masses to less-populated areas, this would make many rural towns and villages more sustainable.
I am just going to roll back to when we were talking about front-line workers and providers who protected us through Covid-19. I received another email during the week from concerned businesses based in a business park in Kilmallock. Among these is Irema, which supplied masks to the health service throughout Ireland. It supplied masks to everyone to try to protect us. Irema does not have broadband. It is a massive employer in Kilmallock yet it does not have broadband. When we asked the company to step up to the plate to help and protect us, it did so. It asked the Government to give it broadband. There are other firms in that area. An Post is in the same business park. Dansko Foods has invested in the same business park and it does not have broadband. If you go to the other side of Kilmallock, Keltec Engineering does not have broadband. I can see that within 100 yards there is broadband. When these firms inquire about it, they are given phone numbers and told they will have it by 2025 or 2026. It is 100 yards away. I am in construction all my life. If you gave a person a shovel he or she would have it dug in a month, so I could do it in a digger within a day. The Government cannot give broadband to businesses that are ratepayers and are helping feed families throughout this country.
I have Eir in my office in Kilmallock. I have BBnet in my home in Granagh. I look up at the mast every day. I have had to contact the likes of Imagine and Virgin to try to help people with wireless connections. Deputy Collins just mentioned, and the Minister of State has said himself, that he has not really engaged with the wireless operators. It is the only hope we have for people to get connected. I want a commitment from the Minister of State that he will get in contact with me about the areas in Limerick where we need immediate broadband because there are jobs on the line and families are being supported through businesses. Houlihan Engineering in Athlacca has no broadband. The broadband has come to the end of the road but it will not be brought up an extra 100 yards to provide it to businesses. I therefore want a commitment from the Minister of State that he will look at Limerick and at the areas I am going to give him so we can get broadband into houses and businesses in the county.
I was in Limerick before Christmas. I was there because we were connecting the first set of 2,366 homes and I wanted to see how it is done physically, where the cables go in and how it is working. I understand there are another 4,812 homes in Limerick that are being connected by cable. The national broadband plan is not just for residential use. It is for every premises, whether it is a business or a farm. It should reach everybody, including the company in Kilmallock the Deputy described. If the Deputy has a particular issue with broadband in his area and wants to discuss it with me or have a one-to-one meeting with the civil servants in charge of the broadband plan, then he can do that and they will engage with him. I am happy to go anywhere in the country to see with my own eyes how things are going.
I have engaged with wireless providers, but as I said, I can always do more. If the Deputy has a wireless provider in his area who can tell me the practicalities of having its service replaced by fibre, I am happy to do that as well.
I thank the Minister of State. That is very helpful. Deputies Fitzmaurice and Harkin are sharing time.
I was watching the Minister of State on the screen earlier on when he talked about doing more connections. Am I not correct in saying that, under this contract, if Eir goes into the intervention area for somebody so they get high-speed broadband, then NBI or David McCourt is paid for it? Is that not correct?
No, not quite. Does the Deputy want me to answer?
It is a question. He might answer it.
The answer is "No". The intervention area is defined. If a commercial provider provides a service in there, NBI can say it does not want to provide a service in there anymore, that it is not commercially viable, that it is costing the company money as a result and it can apply for a compensation payment. If it is interrupting NBI's plan, such as if that area was in between two areas it was trying to connect, then it could apply for a compensation payment. However, it can also opt to connect the customer itself and give him or her a second connection. NBI has indicated to me it will not opt for compensation payments in any case and so far it has just installed a second connection for anybody in the encroachment area.
The Minister of State is saying to me that if Eir went in and did 50 houses where they have the high-speed broadband, McCourt does not get any money. Is he saying that to me-----
I am saying that-----
-----because I have read the contract?
-----NBI could apply for a compensation payment-----
Therefore it can get paid.
-----and if it can show a loss of revenue as a result and that it is more expensive for it to deploy the network, then that would be adjudicated and NBI could get a payment-----
Who would sign-----
-----but none of these payments has been made.
Who would sign a contract like that?
Sorry?
Who would sign a contract like that, where even if I do not do the work I am going to be paid? What civil servant would allow a Minister to sign something like that?
If the Deputy wants me to explain why a previous Administration signed the contract, then we are now into a sort of archaeological discussion.
No, I do not. I am going to move on because I have only five minutes.
My focus is on delivering the contract as it is. If the Deputy wants to look at what the rationale was for the terms of the contract, I would probably have to go back and speak to the people who signed the contract.
All right. The Minister of State might be able to answer-----
We have our working contract. My focus is making sure everybody complies with the terms of the contract and making sure everybody in rural areas gets broadband as fast as possible.
The Minister of State might be able to answer this. Why are people who put in their postcode and were told they would have broadband in 2021 or 2022 now getting information back that it could be 2025 or 2026?
If the Deputy gives me examples of those, I will trace them down and find an answer for him.
I gave them to the Department.
I do not doubt the Deputy for a second. As with any roll-out, there are developments and changes and people's dates move. At the start, I asked that people be told honestly what year we were planning to connect them, even if it disappoints them to find out that they will be in the sixth or seventh year. It means that as things change and the roll-out progresses, if it is found that something will be later or earlier, that person will get an email stating that his or her connection date has changed, been revised and the revised connection date. It is better to tell people the truth and tell people as things change as we go along, rather than just giving them an open-ended promise that they will get their broadband sometime in the next seven years.
I will give the Minister of State a little insight because I know the game fairly well. I know many of the contractors - not the main contractors or the subcontractor - but a lot of the ordinary hedge-cutting contractors that do the different types of work related to broadband provision. I can tell the Minister of State what is going on out there because seemingly people do not realise it. When it comes to hedge cutting, the minimum is being done and there will be problems in a year or two. The way it was measured with Eir, which will not throw money at you, the surveying that was done was unbelievable. I do not know where it got some of the engineers that did the surveying, but the hedge cutting that is going on and the way it is being priced means that contractors are walking away from it.
The Minister of State does not see this, but for the ordinary people who are doing the work out there on the ground there are savage problems that are not being recognised. It is about time that the Department officials went out to talk to the ordinary Joe Soap, not the guys in the suits who are going around bluffing, and some other word I would use - BS - to people, but the guys who are out there doing the work. They have done it for years with the likes of Eir and, as I said, Eir would not throw money at you, no way. I would never say that, but as bad as it was, it was cutting. There are certain heights even under the line now; that is the way it has gone. If a hedge-cutting contractor misses a piece, or if he or she only does a certain piece, then that contractor does not get paid for that. The way it is being done is absolutely horrendous because down the road a machine will have to be put in again to cut it.
I am taking up Deputy Harkin's time, but I ask the Minister of State to try to get someone to talk to the ordinary people who are doing the work on the ground. I understand about the blockages and everything. Contractors should be permitted by councils - they should not have to get licences and all that. I ask the Minister of State to go out to look at that. If people only knew what was going on with this broadband, they would be frightened.
In June 2020, then Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Richard Bruton, said that "All counties will see premises passed in the first two years and over 90% of premises in the State will have access to high-speed broadband within the next four". That would be mid-2024. If we talk about 90%, Leitrim County Council has confirmed that more than 90% of Leitrim properties requiring intervention in the national broadband plan will not be connected until 2025 or 2026. I looked at the figures for Sligo and saw that by the end of this year it will be approximately 16% and at the end of 2023 it will be about one third, but for 2025 to 2026, 60% of all premises will still not be connected. I have listened to the debate and I heard the Minister of State saying that people would like broadband tomorrow. He is correct and that is fine, but for 90% of Leitrim and 60% of Sligo it is not tomorrow, it is not the day after tomorrow, it is not the year after tomorrow and it is not the year after the year after tomorrow. That is what businesses and families in those counties are facing.
I understand the Minister of State's intent and I have heard it clearly today. He said that he was examining everything he could do. Will he specify what he is examining that will make a difference to those people who are waiting in Sligo and Leitrim?
I believe that the former Minister's target of reaching 90% of homes by 2024 related to all homes in Ireland and not just the national broadband intervention area. Maybe that is providing confusion. Some 22% of homes are in the intervention area. The intention was to reach, or that we would have done, 60% of them by the end of 2024. In other words, 60% of the intervention area homes would be done. That, added to the number of homes that were passed in the urban area, would give a figure of 90% of people with broadband above 30 MB. That is out of date at this stage. A speed of 30 MB per second is not a very high-speed connection any more. We will be revising our targets on that. In fact, our new national digital strategy will come out next week, which will include revised targets for how fast we expect home connections to be. Overall, the target for Ireland and Europe will be gigabit connection within a few years. There will be more details on that at the start of next week. What was the Deputy's other question?
My question is about Sligo and Leitrim. While I am on my feet, the Minister might answer both together. I looked at the figures for Donegal. We are looking at 80% of homes in Donegal not being connected until 2024 or 2026. To revise, 90% of homes in Leitrim will not be connected until 2025 or 2026, 60% of homes in Sligo will not be connected until 2025 or 2026, while the figure for Donegal is 80% by 2024 or 2026. The Minister of State spoke earlier about balanced regional development; he brought it up. There is no balance in all of this. Are we at the end of the queue again?
Next week, we will debate the right to work from home. That legislation will be meaningless for all those people who are waiting until 2025 or 2026. If we are talking about balanced regional development, how does the Minister of State intend to deliver it?
Today, construction of rural broadband is going on in 26 counties in Ireland. In other words, no county is being left until the end of the pile. In 26 different counties broadband is being installed simultaneously. A decision was made to make sure that no county was left behind and only done when other counties were done. Construction is going on in-----
Figures do not lie.
I have the figures. Does the Deputy want me to tell her how many are under construction in each of those counties? In Donegal, 5,681 premises are under construction. In Leitrim, 954 are under construction. Construction is going on in every-----
Out of 14,000. That is what they are looking for. Leitrim County Council has given a figure of 90% and I will not query its figures. The figure for Donegal came from the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. Let us not quibble about figures. I am happy to stand over them. That is not a balance in development. It just is not.
Is it too slow in the north west, Minister?
We will make sure that we provide the Deputy with as much information as possible in as transparent a way as possible. We might be getting lost in the details. I am happy to talk to the Deputy directly about this.
The Minister of State cannot say that unless he can prove my details wrong. If he can, I ask him to come back to me.
I am not saying the Deputy is wrong. I am saying there is construction-----
He said I was getting mixed up. Same thing.
-----in every county in Ireland on the broadband plan. Fibre is being installed in every single county.
It is 5% here and 5% there, but 90%-----
We cannot get involved in tit for tat comments.
If the Minister of State is telling me I am getting mixed up, he had better be able to back it up.
I did not say that, to be fair.
That concludes our questions and answers. We now move to a series of statements on the same matter, which I am sure Deputies will continue to be interested in. This is a rather unusual way to deal with a matter, but the Minister of State has 15 minutes, if he wishes. Is he sharing with Deputy Michael Moynihan?
I probably will not take 15 minutes. I thank the Dáil for the invitation to address it on the roll-out of the historic national broadband plan. I reaffirm to the House that this plan remains a top priority for the Government. I am sure that this House strongly supports the overarching objective of the programme to deliver a high-speed broadband fibre network to more than 554,000 premises, 1.1 million people, over 100,000 farms and non-farm businesses and some 679 schools. The national broadband plan high-speed broadband map is available on the Department's website at broadband.gov.ie. The amber area represents the area to be served by the network to be deployed under the NBP, State-led intervention.
The NBP contract was signed with National Broadband Ireland in November 2019 to ensure that 100% of the premises in the State have access to reliable, high-quality, high-speed broadband.
It will offer users a high-speed broadband service with a minimum download speed of 500 Mbps from the outset, and with higher speeds available to businesses. This plan is the largest infrastructure project in rural Ireland since rural electrification. It spans 96% of Ireland's land mass and it will bring high-speed broadband to 69% of Ireland's total number of farms. It will deliver fast reliable broadband through laying 140,000 km of fibre cable, utilising more than 1.5 million poles and more than 15,000 km of underground duct networks.
I recognise how vital telecommunications services are to citizens for so many aspects of their daily lives, including remote working, studying and e-health and, more recently, staying in touch with family members during the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has caused profound socioeconomic change and has brought to the fore the central role digital connectivity and technology can play in transforming the way we work and connect with each other. The pandemic has highlighted, now more than ever, the importance of current and future connectivity needs, not only in city centres but also across our suburbs, towns and rural communities. Ireland will be a world leader in fibre broadband roll-out by 2026.
A key principle of the national broadband plan is to support and stimulate commercial investment. Since the publication of the NBP strategy in 2012, the commercial telecommunications sector has invested in excess of €3.3 billion in upgrading and modernising networks that support the provision of high-speed broadband and mobile telecommunications services. Extensive investment plans are in place by a range of operators in commercial areas. Eir has stated it will roll out fibre to the home to a further 1.6 million premises in urban areas, bringing its overall fibre to the home deployment to approximately 1.9 million premises. Meanwhile, SIRO is completing the first phase of its fibre deployment and to date has passed more than 400,000 premises with gigabit services. It has recently announced plans to extend that network to an additional 320,000 premises. Virgin Media Ireland has also recently announced a €200 million upgrade of its network to full fibre to the more than 1 million premises the company covers over the next three years. Many other network operators and telecommunications service providers across the State also continue to invest in their networks.
Today, more than 2.4 million or 77% of premises in Ireland can access commercially available high-speed broadband services of more than 30 Mbps. In the 2021 digital economy and society index, DESI, for the 27 EU countries, Ireland performed well. It ranked fifth with a score of 60.3, which is well above the EU average of 50.7. NBI will address the remaining premises through the national broadband plan State intervention. As recently as six years ago, Ireland had a fibre to the home, FTTH, network of less than 1% of the 1.7 million broadband subscriptions. Latest figures from the Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg, report for quarter 3 of 2021 show that fibre to the home subscriptions are now at 340,000 or 20% of the 1.7 million subscriptions, and growing. This upward trajectory has been achieved through a combination of commercial investment and State intervention.
Despite the unprecedented challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, National Broadband Ireland has made steady progress on the delivery of the new high-speed fibre broadband network under the national broadband plan. NBI commenced connections to the new fibre network in January 2021, which is just 12 months ago. As of today, more than 54,000 premises are available for order and pre-order for high-speed fibre broadband across 21 counties, including Carlow, Clare, Cavan, Cork, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Louth, Mayo, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow. NBI has advised that in excess of 154,000 premises are constructed or under construction, demonstrating that the project is reaching scale. More than 5,400 premises have been connected as of 14 January and this figure is increasing weekly. To date, the level of connections is in line with projections and in some areas it is exceeding expectations.
While substantial progress has been made to date, the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the delivery of the fibre network, resulting in delays in the delivery of aspects of the programme. Impacts include challenges with the mobilisation of key contractors, restrictions on operations and supply chain, as well as logistical delays, both nationally and internationally. In addition, there have been challenges with the recruitment of key personnel as NBI and its contractors scale up, including challenges associated with onboarding and training people. Like all of us, NBI and contractor staff are at risk of contracting Covid-19 or may have had to restrict their movements as a result of being a close contact. This impact continues to be felt due to the current more contagious Omicron variant.
With a project of the scale of the NBP, it can be difficult for media commentary to communicate fully the scale of activity or work completed in terms of delivery of the NBP. I will share with Deputies some details of what has been achieved against the backdrop of challenging circumstances brought about by the pandemic to date. Some 6 million metres of cable have been installed; 25,000 telegraph poles have been remediated or newly installed; 152,000 premises have been submitted to Open Eir for the "make ready" programme; 250 section 254 applications have been submitted across all 31 local authorities, with 154 approved; 38 deployment area designs have been approved by the Department; more than 150,000 premises in 45 deployment areas are either under build or build-completed across 26 counties; six deployment areas are now fully build-completed, with four more deployment areas nearing completion; three island deployment areas with build are under way; 26 local exchanges with Nokia equipment have been installed and are ready for network connectivity; 54,000 premises are available to order or pre-order across 21 counties, as well as three islands off the coast of Donegal; 34,417 premises are available to order by 31 January 2022; 7,355 orders have been received by retail service providers; 5,477 connections have been completed across 11 counties, with 1,300 connections made in December 2021 alone; 453 broadband connection points have been installed; and 50 retail service providers, RSPs, have been contracted, with 34 of those onboarded. The ongoing investment in the roll-out is also creating employment opportunities. Some 292 direct employees and 911 indirect employees working with build and design contractors are now employed on foot of the NBP investment, with this number rising weekly as construction activity ramps up.
Broadband connection points, BCPs, are a key element of the NBP. They are located in areas of community importance, allowing local residents to quickly get free public access to high-speed broadband in advance of fibre deployment under the national broadband plan. BCPs are a key support for promoting balanced regional development as part of a sustainable and equitable post-pandemic recovery and will enable rural communities to avail of the opportunities presented by the digital economy. BCPs have been developed to become digitally enabled community assets. Activities currently under way include the establishment of remote working facilities at a significant number of locations, remote e-health consultation booth pilot projects, digital skills training for children and young people, and a national BCP film festival that will be screened at BCPs.
As of 14 January, some 453 BCP sites in total have been installed by NBI and 255 of the publicly available sites are now connected with high-speed broadband service through a service provider contract with Vodafone. As part of this initiative, primary school BCPs are also being provided with high-speed broadband for educational use through service provider contracts managed by the Department of Education. To date, 185 schools have been installed, out of the total of 453 BCP sites, with high-speed broadband for educational access and 99 schools are now connected. An acceleration of this aspect of the national broadband plan will see some 679 schools connected to high-speed broadband well ahead of the original target delivery timeframe of 2026. That is every primary school in the country.
The House will be aware of recent commentary on the ownership structure of NBI and parliamentary questions answered by me on this issue in the Dáil in December. I can confirm the ownership structure of NBI remains as advised to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications at contract award in November 2019 and at the effective date of the contract on 9 January 2020. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has rights of consent under the project agreement in respect of changes in ownership, and NBI must notify the Minister in advance of any such event arising. There have been no subsequent notifications of changes to ownership or control.
It is usual with large-scale projects of this nature that the investors' investment in the project is structured through tiered holding companies. NBI applies the highest standards to its corporate governance and the structures adopted by it are typical of investments in critical infrastructure not only in Ireland but globally where investors of international reach and scale are involved. As the roll-out progresses, I will ensure Members of the House are kept up to date. The Department will continue to arrange Oireachtas stakeholder information sessions for Deputies and Senators, of which, I am pleased to note, 21 sessions were facilitated in the past six months.
Citizens can also obtain information on specific areas in the intervention area through the NBI website. This site provides a facility for any premises within the intervention area to register its interest in being provided with deployment updates through its website, nbi.ie. Individuals who register with this facility will receive regular updates on progress by NBI on delivering the network and specific updates relating to their own premises as works commence. Furthermore, NBI has a dedicated email address, reps@nbi.ie, which can be used by Oireachtas Members for specific queries. NBI has recently published details of its full deployment schedule on its website, which enables all premises within the intervention area to have an anticipated service activation date range.
The national broadband plan will deliver high-speed broadband to every premises in Ireland. The Government remains committed to the speedy and effective roll-out of high-speed broadband that is future-proofed for the next 25 years and beyond.
It is frustrating for everyone that the early stages of the network build have faced challenges. I am disappointed that the programme is behind schedule but I assure my colleagues that I am determined, as is everyone working on this in the Department, to continue to drive an acceleration of the network build programme with the aim of getting it back on track.
The ambition of Ireland's NBP is an exemplar. The Government investment in the NBP, along with the investment by commercial operators in their fibre build programmes, will mean that before the end of this decade Ireland will be the leader in the EU in fibre to the home connectivity. The NBP will ensure that every home, business and farm in the State has access to high-speed broadband connectivity. The NBP will transform where people choose to live and how we work. The short-term challenges of the network build will be overcome and the long-term impact of this programme will be truly life-changing.
I thank the Minister of State for his remarks in respect of this issue. Broadband is one of the key pieces of infrastructure, particularly for all of rural Ireland and indeed for a lot of urban Ireland as well. We always come across people who tell us this is not just a rural problem. There are many areas of the country, even in towns and larger towns, that have difficulties getting stable broadband connection.
The reality is that the pandemic has brought challenges for all of us. I respect and understand the effect it has had on getting work done, delivery times and all of that. However, most of us would also accept that there were delays to the roll-out anyway, even without Covid-19. There were serious issues and problems there anyway. The national broadband roll-out has been slow and difficult. It has not been delivered to the standard the vast majority of the public expected up to now. That is something we need to acknowledge. We need to do something about it to ensure people get the broadband delivery they require.
If one has adequate broadband, particularly fibre broadband, one is in the centre of the commercial world no matter where one is. That is the difference it makes for an awful lot of people, particularly those who have become accustomed to the concept of working from home or a hybrid model of work. Adequate broadband is essential for that. I live in a rural area in the rural constituency of Sligo-Leitrim. I could mention multiple areas where there are issues. The previous question-and-answer session included Deputies referring to their little towns and areas and the problems they have had. There are many small issues in small areas. Consider a company that employs eight people in a town where the broadband comes to a certain point, 200 m away from where the company is based, and it cannot find anyone to bring it that extra couple of hundred yards up the road. The owners of that company would feel frustrated, annoyed and betrayed by a system that cannot do that for them. When that is multiplied by the hundreds of people around the country who have had similar experiences, it creates a problem for the Government. The impression people have is that the Government is letting them down and not delivering for them. That needs to be acknowledged.
I also took note of what Deputy Michael Collins said about the many providers, including satellite providers and providers putting up a mast on a hill and delivering a service. Without those providers, an awful lot of rural areas would be completely lost. One of the fears of many rural communities is that as fibre broadband is rolled out to the more populated areas, those companies that were providing services to both more populated and less populated areas will simply withdraw the service and the less populated areas will be left without any service at all. That needs to be examined closely. I heard the comments the Minister of State made earlier to the effect that he will engage with those providers. That engagement needs to happen as quickly as possible to ensure we now have full delivery of broadband to every house we can possibly reach in the country. In areas that have access now, we must ensure they maintain it.
The delivery of high-speed broadband is crucial to our ability to grow the economy, particularly in the context of regional development. As a Deputy who represents a rural constituency, I know the lack of broadband connectivity is having negative impacts on the ability of rural communities to remain sustainable. The work of NBI is vital. It was reported recently that NBI is once again going to miss its target for access to high-speed Internet for homes and businesses. The target was 60,000. It had been revised down from an original target of 115,000. The likely output is going to be in the region of 35,000 to 40,000, which is approximately one third of the original target. There are perhaps multiple reasons for that. What is more important is what is planned to bring the roll-out back on track, including a timeframe for when it will be back on track.
On the most recent occasion representatives of NBI appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications in September last year, they reported they were six months behind in their work. Has that been extended? It will have a knock-on effect on targets for the coming year. What is the plan to tackle that? NBI also reported it was having licensing issues with a number of local authorities. Is that still causing problems and delays?
The NBI website now has a portal which maps out the different stages each area is at in the process of rolling out high-speed Internet across each county, including roll-out to houses and businesses that can now order or pre-order broadband and areas that are survey pending. Roll-out to some areas will only happen in 2025 or 2026. Quite a lot of my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan, which includes north Meath, is survey pending.
On a point of order, there is no Minister on the other side of the House.
There is a Minister. The Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is there.
I hope there are not further delays because targets are missed.
Most worrying are the areas in which there is no indication of planned activity. There are a number of small gaps in rural areas around Shercock and Virginia, to name but two. An extremely large part of west Cavan is not covered by the map. I was recently contacted by a man from Ballyconnell who told me he has two daughters who were doing college exams in the first week of January. They were doing those exams online and when they were submitting their papers, the Internet dropped for one of the daughters. She got it back up and running and submitted her paper with three minutes to spare. That sort of thing is putting considerable stress on people.
There is also massive frustration and, at times, anger in rural Ireland when people see that their neighbour across the road or a short distance up the road has broadband and they do not. People have told me there is high-speed fibre broadband a quarter of a mile up the road from their home and a quarter of a mile down the road from their home and the two or three houses in the middle are left with none. Those people have no reception whatsoever. They are annoyed. The frustration and anger is worse when such people see that according to the NDP, there is nothing planned for the area in which they live. It is worrying for the residents and an explanation of what is planned to rectify the issue would be much appreciated.
There are large parts of Cork North-Central, my own constituency, that are without high-speed broadband and there is no timeline for delivery. I recently contacted Eir about River Towers, an apartment block on Lee Road in Cork city that is waiting for a fibre to the home connection. Eir informed me it could not give me a date for delivery but that it will be done by 2026, which is four years from now. That is astounding. In Cork city, the second city in this State, there is an apartment block without fibre high-speed broadband. Eir could not give me a date for connection because of ComReg's decision D10/18. I think it is fair to say that when ComReg came up with these decisions, we were not in the same space or time as we are now. We are now reliant on broadband to allow people to work from home or engage in education, as my colleague, Deputy Tully, said. Will the Minister of State instruct ComReg to look at that and review it, given the impact the lack of broadband has on jobs and people's ability to work from home and move employment? There also needs to be an investigation into whether a compromise can be found to allow people to get a timeline for delivery so they know they will be waiting for six months or a year. Four years is not good enough.
Not having access to high-speed broadband has a considerable impact on people's lives. It limits job opportunities, isolates people from family members who are abroad and reduces their entertainment possibilities. In particular, during the pandemic, we found out how important broadband is for students, whether in primary school, secondary school or third level. That is why broadband is vital and needs to be delivered.
From household security systems to baby monitors, so much technology now relies on a high-speed Internet connection and yet many of my constituents are being told they are going to have to wait until 2026 to have proper Internet in their homes. It is 2022. People cannot use Zoom for work, education or involvement in community groups and services. The NBP is failing people. They are so frustrated. I have heard other Deputies talking about the lack of high-speed Internet in their own constituencies.
This is not just a rural Ireland problem; it is a national problem. We can have an apartment block in the city without broadband. There are many other areas. In Clogheen and Kerry Pike, which are 2 km from Apple, one of the biggest computer companies in the world, there are areas with no Internet coverage or limited coverage. The town of Blarney, which is 6 km from Cork city, is the same, as are Watergrasshill, Donoughmore, upper Glanmire and Whitechurch. I have a list of areas in my constituency that either have no broadband connection, or parts of those areas have no broadband connection.
I am asking the Minister of State about this because the current system for the provision of broadband and Internet connections is failing people. Something needs to be done. I ask him to speak to ComReg to see whether we can give people proper timelines. It is all about information. This is the information age and we cannot give people the information they need. I ask the Minister of State to pass that on.
I thank the Minister of State for the efforts he is making to deal with this issue. There are huge challenges, however. Like my colleague from Cork North-Central, I want to convey my concerns about the constituency. Cork is the second biggest city in the country and huge areas now are on the schedule for 2025-26. That is not good enough.
We also have a problem whereby Eir is providing broadband on one side of the road and people on the other side cannot get access to it. I know of one case - one of many - where the pole that the cable is attached to is on the entrance to a particular house. Eir will not provide the broadband to that house yet it will take it 200 yards down the road and provide it to another house. That is not good enough.
The other issue I wish to raise relates to area hubs. We have rolled out these hubs in quite a number of places in my area, including Courtbrack and Whitechurch. We need hubs in other areas, in particular where there will be a delay in the roll-out of broadband from house to house. We need hubs in communities. I have raised three specific areas with Cork County Council and the various authorities: Glenville, Inniscarra community centre and Mourneabbey. These are areas in which a huge number of houses do not have access to broadband. In Inniscarra, for instance, there are more than 900 children in primary school yet huge sections of that parish do not have access to broadband. If 900 children are in primary school, another 900 children from that area are either in college or secondary school. We have no broadband in quite a number of parts of that parish.
We need to be far more proactive with the providers where broadband is in the boundary zone. Why are we applying the rules strictly to the boundary when houses are within a very short distance of where the supply is going? It is something we need to resolve very fast. Many things have changed over the Covid-19 period. It has created huge problems for people and huge difficulties for families. It is now accepted that more people will be working from home.
The final issue I wish to raise is in relation to new housing estates. We are not applying adequate pressure with regard to new housing estates being built. One cannot build an estate unless one has a road, a water supply and a sewerage connection yet we will not make it a condition that an estate must also have a broadband connection. The delay in getting broadband into new housing estates is not good enough. We should have it far faster. It should be there the day the keys are handed over to the purchaser. People should not have to wait 12, 18 or 24 months to get a broadband connection.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on broadband. The issue is that broadband is the great enabler for rural Ireland. In many of the debates we had a number of years ago, we looked at broadband to try to have connectivity within rural Ireland. In the intervening two years, Covid-19 has shown us what rural Ireland can do. Despite the protests of the policymakers that we should all be living centrally in smaller units, Covid-19 has shown us the benefits of our rural communities. We should take that on board. That has been a great lesson for us over the last two years. By taking it on board, we must make sure the broadband issue is taken more seriously.
In his opening remarks, the Minister of State lamented the delays that are taking place with regard to the roll-out of broadband. It is hugely frustrating in one instance but it also hugely wrongs the entire island and all parts of this State to say that we are not taking this plan by the scruff of the neck and making sure it is happening and will happen on time. There is nothing more fundamental than the broadband plan.
Over the last two years, we have seen that whether people are working for State companies, employed by the State directly, employed by multinationals or working for any other number of companies, they have been working from home from the most remote areas. In the earlier period of the lockdown in March, April and May 2020, connectivity and wireless broadband was being looked at, particularly in my area, which is a very rural community. People were making alternative arrangements to the NBP. It is almost as if the providers of wireless broadband have gone beyond and filled a vacancy the State has been neglecting by not rolling it out fast enough.
We are where we are now. We have a delay in the system but we also need to look at the challenges. Previous speakers spoke about the inflexibility within the contracts both to Eir and the NBP. Flexibility needs to be brought into it. Many contributors have asked for that, not only in this debate today but in debates going back over time. I have certainly asked for it in terms of being able to name a raft of places right across my constituency.
We have seen it with the development of community organisations and groups. Even as late as yesterday, somebody spoke to me about accessing broadband in Aubane, Ballydaly and Glash. In Glash and Aubane, schoolhouses that were closed in the late 1960s and early 1970s have become community hubs but they also have broadband connectivity. People are using them because they are for the community but they also have the broadband that is necessary for people to carry out their work. We must also make sure that is one step. We must make sure that any new hubs that are going to be developed in villages and towns where funding is going to come from various government organisations to do the physical construction have top-quality fibre broadband and everything going for them.
While Covid-19 has shown us what can be done in rural communities, broadband is the great enabler or leveller to ensure we have everything. As I have said in many debates, broadband is as crucial as electricity, running water or the telephone in the late 1970s or early 1980s. It is not being taken with the same seriousness as I would like it to be, however. We should not be debating this again. We should be saying that the broadband plan has started and is happening rather than saying there are delays in it. It is totally unacceptable that there are delays. What are the delays in the plan doing? They are affecting decisions families are making in terms of working from home and engaging with their employers. We will be debating the new working from home Bill in a week or so but the great enabler is broadband.
We should not be saying "well, if we had a proper broadband service". It should be there regardless of whether one is in the most remote part of Ireland or in the city centres. Like water, telephone connections and electricity, broadband should be an essential part of our living today in every place. We have debated mobile phone coverage many times. Mobile phone coverage has been disappearing, rather than improving, over the years. I do not see the powers that be, such as ComReg and others, that are charged with making the necessary interventions on behalf of the State, taking it as urgently as they should. They should do so as a matter of grave urgency.
I call Deputy Martin Browne, who will be followed by Deputy Catherine Murphy. I was thinking about Deputy Michael Moynihan establishing an independent republic in Kiskeam.
I would like to remind Deputy Michael Moynihan - although I agree with him that it has started to roll out - that for every place that he can name, we can name another place that is caught for broadband. We all agree that it should be in new housing estates, but the Government needs to start building those houses first.
This week, the Tánaiste outlined the 13 reasons employers will be able to refuse requests to work from home. A company will be able to do so if it has concerns regarding the Internet connectivity of the proposed remote working location. Maybe the Tánaiste should reword this to reflect the reality of the situation for a number of people who have been in contact with me. Maybe he should include a proviso that employees should refer their requests for home working to NBI, given that the slow pace of the NBI roll-out is leaving many people without options for their work. One man who was offered a job opportunity had to meet a requirement that his Internet connection must have a minimum 20 Mbps download speed and a minimum 10 Mbps upload speed. When he checked his connection, he found he had nowhere near this level. When he checked with his provider, he was told that the infrastructure was not in place. When I inquired on his behalf, I was told that while there is no high-speed broadband at his premises at the minute, as it stands it should be connected up with a full fibre to the home connection by NBI at some stage between May and July of this year. That is real good for him. If the Tánaiste is happy to put job prospects into the hands of NBI, he will encounter some very real problems.
There are also issues of crossover with companies such as Eir. A constituent contacted Eir at the end of last year when a salesman told him that fibre broadband under the NBI scheme was available to his home. When he contacted Eir, they signed him up for an installation. When the day arrived, they advised the customer that there was a porting issue at their end and that it got cancelled in error. They therefore arranged another date. The day before that date, he was told that they could not install it because the infrastructure is not in place for fibre broadband in his area. Since then, Eir and NBI have been telling the customer that it is the fault of the other. While this kind of problem with Eir is no surprise, it is an unacceptable way to deal with a customer and with the roll-out of a service.
I also have concerns for our farming community. More and more farmers are reliant on broadband to effectively manage and resource their farms. Indeed, at the agriculture committee, we heard of the importance of data collection and analysis, which will help to vastly improve environmental management, such as fertiliser spreading, organic manure management and crop harvesting. There is a bit of a road to go in relation to this at the moment. There has been a lack of clarity on the number of farms that have been connected, apart from NBI saying its ambition is to connect 54,000 farms to high-speed broadband. If our farmers are being required to adhere to increasingly technical demands, and if we are to have the capacity to use the technological advances that have been made in recent times, the roll-out of high-speed broadband is crucial for them. While I appreciate that some progress has been made in Tipperary, there are entire counties that have been left out altogether. In the last six months, 28 national schools have gone live and 168 schools are now ready to connect through a retail service provider. Some 99 of those are live out a total of 679 national schools in the intervention area.
Last year, the Government agreed to a remedial plan that involved reducing the number of houses and businesses passed by the end of the year to 60,000. I understand that the number achieved was well below that. Given the significant amount of public money that has been pumped into the NBP, as well as all we have heard about the contract concerns - my colleague Deputy Stanley had warned about this - there needs to be greater regulation of public procurement spending on a range of capital projects about which there are questions regarding spiralling costs.
There has been quite a bit of media coverage around the NBP in recent months, particularly before Christmas. It has mainly focused on missed targets, on how very little of the investors’ own money has gone into the NBP, on how it is funded, on the complicated corporate structure and so on. The big takeaway was about the expectation that €175 million in equity was to be put in by those who won the tender. We were told that this had been promised. The expectation was that this equity would be put in but in fact, there has been an equity investment of just €98 million so far. That usually means the purchase of shares. In effect, this boils down to the fact that just €2 million of their own money has been put into what is the largest contract in the history of the State. That was not my expectation. I do not think that anybody else had that expectation either. In essence, the money in entails lots of high-cost loans and at best no equity, while the money out entails fees and interest from those loans. The Minister of State has just confirmed that was exactly what was expected by those who signed the contract. It is certainly not what was conveyed here in the Dáil. A contribution of €223 million, which was the total amount via loans and not share purchase, was touted prior to the contract being awarded. The figure so far is €98 million.
I want to move on. Of the €38 million in fees paid to investors - and this has to do with when the contract was awarded - €32.7 million was paid to NBI Bidco LLC, which was controlled by Granahan McCourt. It was set up just a week before the contract was signed. Even if it had been permitted to recoup the cost of the bid, how was it that a company which was set up a week beforehand got to claim that money? They clearly had not incurred such a cost. I would like a response to that, even if it is later on in writing.
The Department and NBI insist that Granahan McCourt controls NBI and that control is determined by voting rights. This may be true, but the contract itself states that control is determined according to who has the necessary voting rights, holds the necessary investment or is entitled to the necessary percentage of dividends. The threshold for control is set at 30% of the contract. While Mr. McCourt may well have 30% of the voting rights of NBI, as the Department claims, he certainly does not own 30% of the shares. That has been clearly demonstrated by the way this is funded. Does he actually control NBI? If so, and if it is only based on voting rights, why does the contract suggest otherwise? I refer the Minister of State to page 42 of the definitions in relation to that. Why was a multimillion euro State contract given to Mr. McCourt, whose private investment firm, Granahan McCourt Capital LLC, owns just 2.7% of NBI? Just €54,674 of the money Granahan McCourt Capital LLC invested was by way of buying shares, whereas 99.1% was via debt. I am still not satisfied with the responses that we have heard in that regard today.
What does the contract say about the investors' obligations when it comes to capitalising NBI? Does it allow shareholders to provide capital in the form of loans at 12% compound interest? Is that the kind of thing that is specified? I have asked for it to be published to the greatest degree possible, and ideally the whole lot of it. The Minister of State has said he is looking into that at the moment. However, it is important that we can see just exactly what was signed up to, so that we can evaluate that ourselves.
Finally, the key issue is whether the consortium can crash out at any time. If so, what does that look like? What do they take with them?
What is the potential risk to the State? We need a response to that. I would be very happy to get that answer in writing because there are a lot of things to be caught up on after this debate.
I want to talk about the lack of broadband in Mayo. As a previous speaker said, people in Mayo are taxpayers as well. They have been promised broadband and they are not getting it and they look at screens telling them it will happen in 2025 or 2026. Not one home has been connected yet. We have asked for details about the contract, such as whether there will be penalties for targets not being met or what will happen. It reminds me of the JobPath situation and the sell-off of Eircom. People want to know that they and their money are protected but they also want to know when they will be connected. That is not happening at the moment.
Third level students are trying to study from home. We are creating such inequality through all of this and it is so unjust, particularly in rural Ireland and the west, which needs investment. We are continuously promised jam tomorrow and told that everything will be alright next month or the month after but we are not getting anything. I have a leaving certificate student in my house and when he switches one thing on I have to switch off another. We cannot work like that. So many Government essential services are delivered online at the moment, and rightly so because efficiencies can be achieved there, but the inequality that is built in by not having proper broadband connectivity is just not right. There is a lack of transparency around what is going to happen and this House deserves to know what is happening.
On the issue of the equity, we were told in the first instance what the company that was granted the contract would be investing in it and then we found out that was not true at all. We do not know what to believe at this stage but we want broadband. There are people with disabilities who are at home and who need connectivity because they are socially and economically excluded from society. Target after target is not being met and we are not given an explanation for that. We were told for a while, as we were with many other services, that this was because of Covid but I do not accept that. This should not have been delayed with Covid because it was considered an essential service. We in Mayo have absolutely no confidence that the targets will be reached and we are running out of patience and out of road. We have certainly run out of broadband and connectivity. The Minister of State informed us that the investors have already extracted millions to cover their own costs incurred during the bidding phase. That is just not right. There is still not a single home connected in Mayo. I talk about Mayo but this affects so many other counties as well. It is disingenuous for the Government to claim that the equity investment that was to be put in by the investors can mean equity or debt financing. People want a return for the money. They want fairness, justice and value for money. They are certainly not getting this with regard to broadband in Mayo. They want the truth at this stage.
I thank the Minister of State for being in the Chamber to answer questions and listen to statements on this issue.
We have had the questions already, Deputy. These are the statements.
I have just come from the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications, where we were discussing the contribution NBI is making. Subsequent to some further information that was brought to our attention today, there are some issues I want to highlight. The Government put a strong focus on rolling out broadband services to areas of the country that had a severe lack of any type of infrastructure around broadband. Community centres, with which the Minister of State would be familiar, primary schools and even some parish halls have been chosen as suitable locations for these facilities. An issue with these facilities was brought to my attention recently. I found it quite entertaining but it is a very valid point. In order to access these services people must receive a text message from a mobile phone provider but not only do many of these areas not have high-speed broadband access, they also do not have phone reception. It makes it impossible to access those services. I said this to the representatives from NBI. It is important that it looks at incorporating this into the national broadband plan. That is something I would like the Minister of State to look at. Multiple millions of euro have been invested to make this happen and it was supported by many Ministers. The former Minister, Deputy Naughten, who is in the Chamber, did a lot of work in this area, as did the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys. I compliment her on her very hard and diligent work to make this happen. That is welcome. I would appreciate it if the Minister of State could take that point away. There are so many potential solutions that could be brought forward to deal with that area but all of this work is fruitless unless that reception issue can be addressed and solved. It would be a very poor investment from the State's point of view if people could not access these services.
My other point relates to rural businesses, such as those outside towns in rural constituencies like my own in Cork East. The M9 and the Cork to Dublin motorway are vital links for these businesses. They have attracted a lot of logistics companies into the area that require heavy goods transfers and other services so it is optimal for them to be located beside a motorway. Another problem we have is that we cannot get high-speed broadband in areas like Rathcormac. I do not mean to be too parochial in the House but that issue needs to be identified. We are very lucky that we have these sources of employment. In some cases the employers are hiring in excess of 100 employees. I come from Youghal. There is no private employer or business in Youghal town with over 100 people working in it at the moment and that is an issue we need to address. There are rural villages near the motorway with large businesses operating in them but they cannot get Internet and there is a two or three year wait. I do not need to harp on about how important access to high-speed broadband is but this is a State-led emergency intervention. In 2022, we need to look at ramping up that intervention and if private businesses of a sizeable scale want to sit down and consult NBI on the matter, that is something we as a Government should facilitate.
We all know how important high-speed broadband has been throughout the pandemic. I live in a secluded rural area and, unfortunately, we do not yet have a high-speed connection to our own home. We are in the same boat as many others and are relying on satellite broadband connections. The Government should also explore the expansion of that solution as part of NBI's work. While satellites do not provide the most stable connection, they are a short-term solution that provide additional high-speed broadband. That is one area that has to be incorporated into the plan. Satellites could also address phone connectivity issues. ESB Networks have a role to play in that regard and that is not being looked at as strongly as it could be. We could use our electric line network for the provision of limited facilities to improve rural 4G services. There are swathes of the countryside where there is no coverage, no matter where you go in Ireland. Even driving on the motorways between our major cities, there are serious blackspots where there is no phone reception. That is a very important part of any business in today's world and its importance will continue to grow.
Deputy Conway-Walsh said something that hit home for me. She stated that there will be a significant wait, well into the mid 2020s, before a lot of rural areas receive any degree of connection. What concerns me, and I am right to be concerned about this, is what new technologies will be available when we reach that stage and whether this represents value for the State. It is important that we have an honest and frank conversation in a year's time with regard to that issue. I will leave the rest of my time to my colleague.
I thought I had an eight-minute slot. Do I have two minutes?
The Deputy can see whether he will get eight minutes.
Much has been said. What is important to point out is that it is a massive €2.1 billion project, but what it delivers will be massive in terms of opportunity throughout the country. We have often had an urban-rural divide in much of our infrastructure. What we are doing here is bringing equity to communications and fantastic opportunities to every rural home, business and school. There has also been quite a roll-out of the BCPs, which has made a huge difference. I brought it up with NBI at the committee meeting earlier. It looks at the impact that has on the schools and public areas where those BCPs have been rolled out.
I stressed to NBI that it was a massive plan. It has been described as akin to the rural electrification system and what that brought to rural Ireland. It will hit hiccups and bumps, but what I have had from interaction with NBI, on-site and in committee, is that there has been significant learning from the difficulties it has experienced in the first two years of the roll-out in terms of infrastructure, the problems with ducts and following drawings and network plans and what is on the ground not reflecting what it may have seen in the original drawings and I understand that.
What I have taken from it is that NBI has learned much from that and we will see an acceleration and improvement in its designs and future works. It will come in on target and deliver for rural Ireland. We should all support it and get it rolled out as quickly as possible.
For the record, the Deputy is down here as having a four-minute slot, together with Deputy O'Connor, who also had four minutes.
Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for letting me in. I was struggling to make it here in time when the Government missed the last slot. I mentioned some of this earlier, but another Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is present. The goals of the national broadband plan are laudable and, we in People Before Profit believe, essential for rural Ireland.
The provision of the service to more than 500,000 addresses is not only vital for businesses; it is vital for ordinary households and schools, etc., in an evermore online world where high-speed Internet access is not some kind of a luxury but a bare minimum needed to participate fully in this society. It becomes even more essential for access to State services and more essential still in a coronavirus-ridden world for remote learning and working. There is no doubt about its importance.
However laudable the goals, the current plan, for historical reasons, falls on every metric. We have been repeatedly told this is essential infrastructure and must be provided by means of massive taxpayer subsidies of €3 billion, but even the most risky gambler probably would not bet that the figure will not rise, as has happened in other outsourced national projects. The primary justification is the lack of State telecommunications infrastructure, but that is the result of a Government decision. Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, in 1999, committed to privatising Telecom Éireann and the absolutely disastrous outcome of that decision is well known in this House.
Our national communications infrastructure was repeatedly bought and sold, including by many of the big business names in Ireland. At every stage, the company was loaded with debt and sweated for every cent that could be extracted, starving the company of needed infrastructural investment and leaving it incapable of anything like the services required, because it simply could not generate the necessary profits for whomever or whatever entity happened to own it at the time. Fintan O'Toole famously said at the time that the assets and equity funds of that company were "passed around [from Billy to Jack] like a joint at a student party". However, the decision to privatise Telecom Éireann did not happen in a vacuum. It has been part of a deep ideology of outsourcing essential services for State functions to the private sector and it always has dire outcomes for those of us who rely on those services and for every person and taxpayer in the country, as the costs always spiral. Private entities involved must have their profits protected, regardless of the cost to the State, or the level of service provided.
The list of failures is probably too long to go into here, but I will mention a few: public-private partnerships on toll roads; school buildings that are faulty and on which we pay more and more to have them sorted out; the national convention centre; the national children's hospital; and the cervical check programme. Even with the history of a great number of observers of this plan having very serious concerns about it from the outset, it has developed in an even worse fashion than most of us had feared. We now have a €3 billion plan over 25 years, the infrastructure of which we will not own at the end.
As if all of this was not bad enough, recent revelations on the financial structures and entities behind the NBI show us the company created a plan with a network of at least 13 different companies throughout Ireland, Luxembourg and America. In fact, we now know that David McCourt's firm only owns approximately 10% of NBI, despite contrived corporate structures that seem to indicate he has a controlling stake.
Anyone paying attention to the housing crisis, which all of us have been, knows the Oak Hill Advisors vulture fund has specialised in discounting bad loans to sweat borrowers and underlying assets for cash. In the previous Dáil, Fianna Fáil famously called for the nationalisation of the broadband plan, but it is silent on that issue now. However, I echo that call, on behalf of People Before Profit, for any essential infrastructure in this State not to be outsourced like the list of those I have mentioned, and this outsourcing programme is a disaster. Not only is it a disaster, but those who are given the responsibility to oversee the funding, ownership and control of the company is Ernst & Young. It did a great job on the banks when it audited Anglo Irish Bank and if that is what we are relying on, then God help Ireland, because we are heading down a disastrous road.
I looked at NBI's website earlier this week and the statistics on it are underwhelming. Almost 300,000 premises have been surveyed; 250,000 completed; more than 150,000 premises are under construction or constructed; and 55,000 premises are available for order. Apparently, 450 BCPs have been installed. However, we have learned from "Prime Time" in the past month or so that there are just 3,335 homes connected throughout the State. Progress has been painfully slow.
I spoke to a lady last week who had been searching for months for a rental property in the south Kildare area within her budget, which is a hard find. She finally found a home in the Lackagh area, but was unable to move in because the Internet speed was measured at 1.9 Mbps. The lady works from home for a large multinational company and needs a good connection to save a 90-mile round-trip commute to Dublin. The expected connection date for the premises is - wait for it - December 2026.
Rural dwellers cannot put their lives on hold for the next five years. The Government needs to get the finger out and take urgent action. Decent Internet speed is not just about streaming movies, although in many parts of County Kildare and Portarlington, County Laois, where trips to the cinema are difficult to make if one does not drive, entertainment is a relevant factor.
Businesses struggle to complete payroll, students struggle to submit assignments and community groups struggle to connect with their members due to poor broadband speeds. I had an email from a rural school last week that had recently taken delivery of a number of Chromebooks, due to its own fundraising, which is another story in itself. However, it is unable to use them due to the poor Internet speed in the area. Staff have also undertaken considerable upskilling to ensure the pupils' development of digital skills and literacy are enhanced and the school sourced Internet safety books for staff, parents and pupils from Barnardos.
It has done everything possible to ensure its pupils are supported. Unfortunately, it is let down time and again by its poor quality Internet connection. I have written to the Minister for Education on this and I am still waiting on a reply. The maximum speed available for the connection appears to be approximately 7 Mbps. If one teacher streams video content to his or her classroom, this has a detrimental impact on the ability of other classes to use the Internet. This is not acceptable in this day and age.
Schools must be prioritised for connection to high-speed broadband.
There is an increased use of Google Classroom and apps such as Aladdin and Seesaw in our schools. This is a welcome development but can cause untold heartbreak for rural families who struggle to go online. In many parts of south Kildare, as the Ceann Comhairle will be aware, and Portarlington, we have a digital divide where rural dwellers are left behind and the Government is washing its hands of them. Sinn Féin did not favour the current set-up with the national broadband roll-out. At the time, we proposed using ESB Networks or another State agency with a track record in delivering large-scale infrastructure projects. Instead the Government, not surprisingly, chose the privatisation route, which is not delivering on its targets, will not be in public ownership and is removed from accountability that would have existed if Sinn Féin was in government. It is not good enough and it needs to change now.
As the Ceann Comhairle will be aware, as a member of the Business Committee I supported the taking of the questions and answers session earlier in the debate on the structure and roll-out of the NBP. I also called for it in the House before Christmas, as Members are genuinely concerned by what the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, called earlier, "a complex corporate structure". We have heard of references to holding companies, entities and subcontractors. It is mesmerising.
I reiterate that the Minister of the day was kept at arm's length from the procurement process, which meant that the Minister had no knowledge of this structure. The Department itself was responsible for the governance of the national broadband plan and departmental officials need to be brought before the relevant committees to answer questions on these particular issues.
As Minister, it was always my intention to publish the contract and only exclude the bare minimum and I believe that has not yet been fulfilled. While all of this is important, the primary focus of questions that I have been receiving as a public representative is when people will get access to the broadband network.
While I was blamed for being too attentive to the project, the present Government ignored this project for the past two years. It has, at least in part, contributed to the current slippage with the project now running 12 months behind target despite the commitments in the programme for Government to fast-track the project. The Government made that promise to fast-track the project and then it sat on its hands. The Government has tried to pass off these delays as due to Covid In September, the Oireachtas was given a revised target of passing 60,000 premises by the end of the year and instead they passed only 35,000 by 1 January, a slippage of 25,000 premises in only 107 days. In reality, this means that 100,000 fewer homes will have access to the high-speed broadband at the end of this year than was planned when the contract was signed in November 2019.
I have put on the Dáil and the committee record where, I believe, the Government has failed but, to the credit of the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, he has been prepared to listen to suggestions and to act upon them. I want to acknowledge that and put forward some constructive suggestions. I was on the ground in Blessington looking at the build-out and it was clear that there were substantial challenges with the condition of the existing network. This was known for many months. I acknowledge that the Minister of State, before Christmas, sat down with the chief executives of both Eir and NBI to help address these delays but with the clear issues on the condition of the existing network, one has to ask the question as to why we had to wait 25 months into the contract for that meeting to take place. I want to know, on foot of this particular meeting, what is now being done by Eir to resolve these particular issues. I also want to know if the issue of the quality of the surveying came up in those discussions because I understand that some of the drawings that the NBI build contractors received had no bearing whatsoever to the existing infrastructure that was on the ground.
We also need to be honest with people. Everyone cannot be connected at the start of the build programme. That is why, as Minister, I insisted on the roll-out of the broadband connection points providing high-speed BCPs in rural communities, which has now morphed into digital hubs providing hot-desking facilities across this country. The vast majority of the population today now have access to one of these within 30 minutes of them and that is a positive development. This project has now been expanded to include all primary schools and several marts, which is also very welcome.
I ask the Government to ensure that everyone has access to a provisional date for connection to this network right across the 227 deployment areas. Even if at this stage it is only a list of how NBI will progress through each of those 227 deployment areas, it at least gives an indication to people. This would not only bring clarity to families and business, but also to alternative wireless providers who can focus their marketing and deployment on those homes that are later in the build programmes.
As NBI delivers fibre broadband to homes, families will come off these wireless services. Companies, such as Eurona Brisknet in County Roscommon, are pre-selling fibre connections. When people are connected, they are moving that equipment to more isolated homes providing them with a broadband service allowing them to work from home and gain some of the benefit of the connections that have taken place. The reality is there will be only a short window for a return on this supplementary deployment and we need the local authorities and State bodies to provide temporary sites free of charge to allow them to expand their reach. This is a cost-effective way to extend the benefit of the early deployment areas to homes that will be waiting a number of years for a fibre connection. There is no point spending another 25 months thinking about this. There are proactive wireless companies, such as Eurona Brisknet, that are willing to embrace this model if the State meets them halfway. It should not be forgotten that I released the 5G network specifically to support the roll-out by companies, such as Imagine, of their next generation wireless service. These companies need to be supported in expanding their reach to more isolated rural homes, especially as capacity and existing equipment becomes available, and they need access to the NBI backhaul. Let us at least have one constructive outcome from today's debate.
Now we go to a Government slot where Deputy Alan Farrell is sharing with Deputy Murnane O'Connor.
I thought I was taking the slot of Deputy Matthews.
Deputy Matthews had a short slot. He took two minutes earlier. I am working off the list before me. The Deputies can do what they like but on the list before me are Deputies Alan Farrell and Murnane O'Connor, and actually Deputy Carey as well.
That has changed from six or seven minutes ago or however length of time I have been here. I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I appreciate the opportunity to address this.
The Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, probably will not mind me making this point that this is not the national rural broadband plan; it is the national broadband plan. I say that because 13,000 homes in Dublin are to be included in the roll-out by NBI. It is important to say that, as a representative of the largest of those constituencies in Dublin, the vast majority of those 13,000 are probably in my constituency. On that basis, it is important to talk about what this is rather than what it is not and about the fact that we are here because of what I submit to be a disastrous policy decision made more than 20 years ago to privatise the entire telecommunications network, including the lines. That policy, of course, has had disastrous consequences in the sense that it was left to private enterprise to invest and it did not invest in the more difficult areas, particularly in my constituency where people live in rural environments west of the M1 motorway but also in some of the suburban towns in the northern end of the constituency. For instance, I got an email only this week from NBI outlining 2,400 homes that will be provided with high-speed broadband up to 500 Mbps in the next year or two. This is real progress. While, of course, I am a little upset by the fact that there have been significant delays to the development of the NBI plan because of Covid, I am also a realist. I appreciate that people were in lockdown and, therefore, there was automatic slippage.
This is not an opportunity to ask a question of the Minister of State but it is something for the officials to note. Can we make up time, and if so, how much can we make up in the coming years? There is significant work, not limited to communities such as those in Skerries, Balbriggan, Balrothery and Man O'War. There has been significant progress in regard to connections to local sporting organisations such as Man O'War GFC, some of our cultural sites such as Newbridge House and Farm, and a number of other GAA clubs such as Fingal Ravens GFC. That is an opportunity for us to ensure the digital hubs are there for people who might be waiting a little longer to get themselves connected to high-speed broadband.
Of course, as has been mentioned by many Deputies, there are obvious societal benefits, in respect not just of education but also of working from home, which we are encouraging and now legislating for and which is a welcome development. The more people who have high-speed broadband, the more services that can be provided, such as e-health, which is another reasonable way for people to cut their carbon emissions along with working from home, whereby they do not have to travel or take up space, whether on a commuter train, a bus or in their car, emitting unnecessary carbon emissions. That they can work from home has a real benefit. It also has an economic benefit because those who stay in the rural community will shop there. Rather than buy a roll in the city, they stay local, which is good.
I am encouraged by the gathering of pace of the national broadband plan, Covid delays notwithstanding. Communities throughout the country will benefit from this. I mentioned the fact we are here because of a disastrous policy decision, but we have undone that policy decision by bringing forward the national broadband plan and ensuring communities are connected both in rural Ireland and in my constituency, which I do not think any of my rural colleagues would accept is rural Ireland. That is the most important aspect of this.
A constituent of mine in Carlow cannot access an NBI connection because the website says the survey is still pending. NBI contractors have been on the ground throughout the country for more than 22 months and more than 291,000 premises nationwide have been surveyed. A total of 3,500 premises were surveyed in September last year. When my constituent checks on the NBI website and enters his Eircode postcode to see what stage it is at, his status is stuck. It is stuck on "survey pending" and that has been going on for the past year. When he rings me, he tells me he is always told the same, namely, that it is stuck on pending and it has been like that for the past year. This means he cannot contact service providers of broadband to arrange a date to connect his house to be ready to receive the router from the service provider.
At the same time, the status of his next-door neighbour, 100 m down the road on the same fibre line, is described on the NBI website as being ready to connect service providers. I hear this all the time, whereby neighbours have been left short compared with other neighbours. That is the biggest issue. I have been contacted by people who say there could be two houses on a road that have a connection, five that do not and then a further ten that do. It just does not make sense.
One thousand homes in Ireland were connected in December. A total of 29% and 38% of all premises in counties Carlow and Kilkenny, respectively, are within the intervention area but there remain broadband-poor areas, which we have to address. That is the issue that is coming across my desk all the time.
Under Our Rural Future, we gave a commitment to developing a national network of 400 remote working hubs over the next five years. There is nationwide coverage, with more than 177 hubs already using the connect hub platform, but the other 223 are not up and running. These hubs are great but there are constituents of mine who live outside of easy commuting distance to them and they need broadband. It is these people who are losing out. We all want the national broadband plan to move as quickly as possible because broadband plays a significant part in people's lives and work, in businesses and so on.
These issues have to be addressed. How can two houses on a road not have broadband and yet five houses beside them have it? It just does not make sense. Will the Minister of State look into that for me? It is important we move on this. Broadband is so important to everyone and Covid has shown us its importance for working from home and for businesses.
Tá áthas orm labhairt sna ráitis seo ar leathanbhanda. Is tubaiste mhór í agus tá a fhios ag gach Ball nach bhfuil na moilleanna seo go maith. Tá sé dochreidte go bhfuil daoine ag feithimh ar feadh na blianta chun an t-infreastruchtúr seo a fháil, agus is infreastruchtúr bunúsach é ag deireadh an lae.
The following comments were made by a Minister regarding the roll-out of the national broadband plan, "The Government’s National Broadband Plan aims to radically change the broadband landscape in Ireland by ensuring that high speed services ... are available to all of our citizens and businesses, well in advance of the EU’s target date of 2020, and that significantly higher speeds are available to as many homes and businesses as possible." That was the then Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte. It was 2013, one year after the national broadband plan was originally published, in August 2012, and two years after the publication of the next generation broadband task force report in 2011, yet here we are, at the start of 2022, more than one decade after that report was published, and many parts of both rural and urban Ireland are still without access to basic infrastructure, namely, high-speed fibre connections. That is incredible.
Several Government Deputies have argued this project is gathering pace. What do they mean exactly by "gathering pace"? I quoted an announcement as far back as 2013, and here we are in 2022. It is shameful and there is no excuse for such a delay. It has certainly hampered businesses. I have heard directly from many small employers, one of which, in Rosenallis, County Laois, has 30 employees. He cannot get high-speed broadband in the area and was told it will take a number of years. If that is how employers are treated, it is no wonder we do not have enough jobs or enough job creation in rural Ireland. We are being let down by this so-called plan. It is not a good plan and it is not credible. It is not credible to leave people waiting years for such basic infrastructure.
We in the Rural Independent Group have sought a briefing with National Broadband Ireland to discuss the many issues and to ask the questions that need to be asked because we need proper constructive engagement and firm commitments we can stand over. To expect Deputies to tell their constituents they must wait until 2025 or 2026 for basic infrastructure such as national broadband just does not cut it. It is not acceptable in the least. So much for gathering pace. I do not call it "gathering pace" if we have to wait that long. Surely something can be done here, given that in all our communities, areas and employers are affected. Businesses throughout the country are affected. It will hamper our chances of bringing in foreign direct investment or of encouraging local enterprises to set up in a particular area or community. Not having this infrastructure in place is holding back our local economy and holding back potential. There is something radically wrong, and we all need to ask questions about the national broadband plan.
In respect of my constituency, Laois-Offaly, National Broadband Ireland has confirmed to me that, while areas in Offaly such as those in and around Clonygowan are within its intervention area, the anticipated connection date is between January 2025 and December 2026.
As I said before, that is totally unacceptable, particularly when the Government is talking about legislation allowing people to work from home and we are hearing this sort of spin. How can people work from home if they do not have basic broadband? It is certainly going to put paid to that notion for many families, who will just not be able to do it and will have no option but to commute. Even if their employer is willing to let them work from home, it cannot happen unless the infrastructure is there.
There is too much delay and there is acceptance around that from the Government, which is very concerning. I would have thought the Government would be more critically evaluating the whole process and asking the questions, as elected representatives. I believe that is the proper way to pursue the issue.
It is a long time since the report of the task force I mentioned, some 15 years. I have serious concerns with regard to the cost of the project. This is comparable to the national children's hospital, given it is €2.1 billion. That is very concerning and we need to ask questions, as public representatives.
I apologise. I tried to give the Deputy a little leeway but her time is up.
Táim ag tógáil ama ó na Teachtaí eile sa ghrúpa. I am almost finished. I had leeway because there is nobody else here from the group.
The Deputy is allowed five minutes and I am trying to stick to that. My apologies.
I told the Ceann Comhairle when I came in that I was taking the time on behalf of the group.
It is not on my list so the Deputy has five minutes.
I will finish up. The cost of the NBI programme is made up of a base subsidy of €2.1 billion and €480 million of a contingency subsidy plus VAT. According to NBI, it is very early in the build phase but the indications are it will be able to keep as close to the € 2.1 billion base subsidy as possible. If this does not happen, does the Minister anticipate increasing the existing €480 million contingency fund and, if so, at what level? As I said, I have serious concerns around the cost of the project. Indeed, I have very little confidence that a project of this scale can be delivered. It is certainly not being delivered in a timely manner.
Thank you. There was probably a little confusion there. We move to the Independent Group. I call Deputy Catherine Connolly, who has five minutes.
I might benefit from some confusion as well.
That is just so the Deputy understands it.
I am just joking. I am not sure how I can do justice to this topic in five minutes. I welcome it. However, in a sense, we are putting the cart before the horse. At the moment, there is a committee meeting going on, or it has just finished, where the CEO and the committee are teasing out very important issues, and the Committee of Public Accounts is due to have an appearance by the CEO on 10 February. I would have thought that, rather than speaking in a vacuum today, some of the issues we highlighted would be crystallised and we would have a better chance at that stage.
On this page I have in front of me, I have a list of various places ar fud Conamara, inar cuireadh in iúl dom nach bhfuil an córas ag feidhmiú agus go bhfuil muintir na háite thíos ó thaobh easpa leathanbhanda. While I will not read out personal things, I want to refer to the information on the page. At Pairc Láir, An Spideál, where four people are trying to work from home in an amber area, the time spent will be two to four years and Sky does not provide a service. At Lochán Beag, it is in an amber area situated on a link road between two complete access fibre ribbons, but they cannot get it. At Knock South, Inverin, five people are working from there, just off the R336, where fibre runs. I could go on.
We spend our time taking these representations. I appreciate the Minister of State who was present earlier, Deputy Ossian Smyth, has taken a hands-on approach, as I am sure has the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon. This begs questions as to why a busy Minister has to take such a hands-on approach when there are all of the officials to run what should be an open and accountable contract without all of this extra effort. I would love to know the price of that. We spend our time putting in representations and fighting to move people along the colour board from blue to amber, and then fighting within that amber to see what year it will be. I will leave that point and use my time to deal with other issues.
I never thought I would stand here and agree with Deputy Alan Farrell. I absolutely agree with him when he belatedly said that, unfortunately, it was an absolute disaster when Telecom Éireann was privatised by flotation back in 1999, given what happened after that. It was a major mistake. We are now investing somewhere between €2.1 billion and €3 billion and, even in itself, that uncertainty is unhelpful. While it was clarified as €2.1 billion in a contract, it is a lot more than that. There is a huge effort from the Department to monitor a contract that we have not seen because, despite the fact the former Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, said it would be published almost in full, we have not seen it. We are here getting reassurances and talking around in circles, trying to find out how this contract is being implemented and find out about the person fronting it, who appears to have only a 10% share, and all of the other myriad companies behind it. However, let us not bother our little minds about that because it is all too complex for us. It is ironic we are talking about communications and broadband, and facilitating easier communication, while all of the time we are obfuscating, confusing and hiding communication, and making it impossible for ourselves, because we are just ordinary Deputies, to read stuff and ask appropriate questions. It is not possible and the Minister of State knows that. Over and over again, we see various examples of different organisations where the governance has utterly failed - everything from the children's hospital, which had an outside board attached to it to monitor what was going on, to yesterday's terrible report on CAMHS in County Kerry. All of the time, it is governance failing. What do we do? We sign a contract that is too complex for the ordinary Deputy to understand.
Belatedly, we then put in a public service director, or whatever the correct title is. She was put in almost a year later. What is the role of that woman? Has she come back and reported to the Government in regard to various issues? What issues have arisen? I understand the problem with a public director is that his or her duty is to the company, so what is the point of having a public director? I happened to be at one or two meetings initially, when my colleague Deputy Pringle was not available. I asked this very question in regard to the role of a public director and what was going to happen but we have heard nothing since in that regard.
We are here today, looking at something like this, without any connection to the other companies on the ground. We have all met them. We have been overwhelmed with representations from companies on the ground, so we can do it but we are not being facilitated. We have an awful lot of complaints about Eir and we have to continuously pressurise it so that people come off the amber because Eir has finally facilitated them.
My time is up and I have not even approached the issue. While I am not complaining, this is no way to bring openness and accountability to a contract like this.
I thank Deputies for their contributions throughout what has been a very important process, not just the statements in the last hour or so but the questions and answers with the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, prior to that. I thank the House on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, for the invitation to address the House on the roll-out of the national broadband plan and for the views expressed by the various Members throughout this discussion on the matter, which is one of absolute national importance.
The Minister of State's earlier contribution made a reference that I have made myself on a number of occasions, and many in this House have also acknowledged that the scale of what we are doing here has never been reached in terms of infrastructure roll-out since the electrification of Ireland. There are a lot of good analogies in that space. Obviously, it is a mammoth undertaking and, in that regard, it was always going to face challenges, some of them unforeseen, such as Covid, which I will touch on shortly regarding the steps that are being taken to respond to that. In terms of the net benefit for companies, individuals, farms, schools and all the other premises that have been connected, during the electrification of Ireland at that time, people thought that was simply to bring light into a house and no one could ever have envisaged all the different uses and different appliances we would end up plugging in and using electricity for now.
Similarly, we cannot even envisage the myriad uses there will be for a high-speed network and the smart lives we will be able to live in our homes in the future. That is why this is the right thing to do. Questions have been raised about the cost of this. Fine Gael was criticised in the previous Government for driving on with this. We have been vindicated by the fact the overall NBP is critical. It is the right thing to do. It is a very ambitious approach by this Government and the previous Government to be world leaders in the reach we will have throughout our country.
As the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, said earlier, I confirm to the House the NBP remains a top priority of the Government for those reasons. At the centre of this plan is the delivery of high-speed broadband for the citizens of Ireland, both from a value for money and a delivery of critical infrastructure perspective. It is a vital utility necessary for the continued economic and social development of our country. Balanced regional development is so important to us. That is why no home has been left behind and everybody in all parts will be covered, both urban and rural, and those in between on the edges of places who do not have that access. We will not have any digital divide in this country because of the NBP. That is an important result that will be achieved by the end of this.
It is clear from the contributions Deputies have made today that this House shares the Government's strong desire to ensure high-speed broadband and a future-proofed network are delivered throughout Ireland as soon as possible. While substantial progress has been made to date, complications such as Covid have impacted on the delivery of the fibre network, resulting in delays to the delivery of aspects of the programme.
The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications has worked closely with NBI to put in place a remedial plan under the contract. The focus for 2022 is to continue to develop momentum in the build, to catch up on the delays experienced, and to plan for acceleration, which everybody in this House wants. We know that from our individual roles in each of our constituencies. I am all too aware that we in Kildare are inundated, as much as everyone in this House is, with calls about frustrations. The point was raised earlier that a person can be just down the road from somebody, that the infrastructure is so close, and they ask if they cannot get it connected quicker. We all want this to happen as quickly as possible. The Government is working in a co-ordinated fashion. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is leading the charge in its engagement with NBI to do that, to develop momentum in the build, to catch up on delays that were experienced last year, and to plan for acceleration. Final targets for 2022 will be agreed shortly. Transparency and openness have been raised. Those targets will be clear to everybody. That will give us a real sense of the momentum we are looking to build.
Both the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, are equally keen to see broadband delivered to all citizens as soon as possible, as are all of us in government and in this House. The progression of the roll-out by NBI, in tandem with increased commercial investment by operators such as Eir, SIRO and Virgin Media, is the best means of achieving this. We will continue to work together to deliver for the people of Ireland a broadband plan that will future-proof our country, both economically and societally. It is critical to balanced regional development and to all aspects of our lives. It continues to be a top priority of the Government.