I propose to take Questions Nos. 28 and 45 together.
The Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to ensure high speed broadband access (minimum 30 megabits per second) to all premises in Ireland, regardless of location. The NBP has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector. Today, 7 out of 10 of the 2.3 million premises in Ireland have access to high speed broadband. By 2020, 9 out of 10 premises will have access to a high speed broadband connection. This is being achieved via a combination of commercial investment and a State led intervention.
In April 2017 I published an updated High Speed Broadband Map which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie. This map shows the areas targeted by commercial operators to provide high speed broadband services and the areas that will be included in the State Intervention Area under the National Broadband Plan (NBP).
The Map is colour coded and searchable by address/eircode:
- The AMBER areas represent the target areas for the proposed State led Intervention under the NBP and are the subject of an ongoing procurement process.
- The BLUE represent those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high speed broadband services.
- The LIGHT BLUE areas represent eir's commercial rural deployment plans to rollout high speed broadband to 300,000 premises as part of a Commitment Agreement signed with me in April 2017.
There are over 101,000 premises in Donegal. Nearly 34,000 (34%) fall within the AMBER area and will be served under the State led Intervention. More than 59,000 (58%) of premises are in a BLUE area and are, or will be, served by commercial providers, while approximately 8,000 (8%) are LIGHT BLUE and fall to be served by eir's planned rural deployment.
Information on the categories of specific premises can be accessed on my Department’s website www.broadband.gov.ie by entering the relevant eircode into the High Speed Broadband Map.
My Department is in a formal procurement process to select a company who will roll-out a new high speed broadband network in the State intervention area. That procurement process is now in its final stages.
One bidder, eir, publicly withdrew from the procurement process on 30 January 2018. While this was regrettable, it was a commercial decision for eir to make. The specialist NBP procurement team continues to engage intensively with all relevant stakeholders, including the sse/enet consortium, to ensure the earliest possible achievement of the Government’s objective of providing reliable high quality, high speed broadband to all premises in Ireland.
In April 2017, I signed a Commitment Agreement with eir in relation to its plans to provide High speed broadband to 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis. Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at http://fibrerollout.ie/eircode-lookup/. A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on my Department’s website www.dccae.gov.ie.
Quarterly updates on eir's rural deployment are published on this website. Data for Q1 2018 recently submitted by eir to my Department indicates that the company has passed some 145,000 premises nationwide as part of its ongoing deployment. 17,772 of these are in Donegal. A further 8,302 Donegal premises are in the LIGHT BLUE area on my Department’s High Speed Broadband Map and remain to be passed as part of eir’s rollout.
Eir has signalled that there would likely be knock-on effects to their 2018 milestone targets due to the severe weather impacts of both storms Ophelia and Emma and my Department continues to engage with the company in this regard. I have met with the senior management in eir and expressed to them the importance of implementing measures to catch up with milestone targets as a priority.
A county by county breakdown of eir’s data for Q1 2018 is now available on my Department’s website.
For those premises currently awaiting access to high speed broadband, practical initiatives will continue to be addressed through the work of the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce to address obstacles and improve connectivity in respect of existing and future mobile phone and broadband services.
Under this Taskforce, engagement between telecommunications operators and local authorities through the Broadband Officers is continuing to strengthen. These Broadband Officers are acting as single points of contact in local authorities for their communities. The appointment of these officers is already reaping rewards in terms of ensuring a much greater degree of consistency in engagements with operators and clearing obstacles to developing infrastructure. The Department of Rural and Community Development maintain a list of Broadband Officers, a link to which is available on my Department's website at https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/communications/topics/Broadband/national-broadband-plan/latest-news/Pages/Broadband-Officers-Workshop.aspx.
