Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 December 2018
511. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the way in which the original broadband tender of 800,000 households was in contravention of state aid rules as stated by the Secretary General of his Department when attending the Committee of Public Accounts on 6 December 2018; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53055/18]
Amharc ar fhreagra516. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the role the European Commission played in the decision to amend the broadband tender to assign over 300,000 households to a company (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53095/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 511 and 516 together.
The National Broadband Plan (NBP) aims to ensure high speed broadband access (minimum 30 megabits per second) to all premises in Ireland, regardless of location. This is being achieved via a combination of commercial investment and a State led intervention.
The NBP State led Intervention focuses on areas where industry investment has not been demonstrated.
Under EU State Aid Guidelines, it is a requirement that Member States thoroughly evaluate commercial plans so as to ensure that State Aid is confined to those areas of well-defined market failure, where investment is unlikely to occur in the near future.
In March 2015 my Department published and issued a request for supplementary information to operators on commercial plans for investment in high speed broadband. In October 2015 my Department published the process to assess commercial operators' investment plans. Plans received from commercial operators were subsequently assessed under these published technical, deployment and financial criteria. Both the request for supplementary information and the criteria for assessment of commercial plans are available on my Department’s website at www.broadband.gov.ie.
Following this exercise, my Department published the High Speed Broadband Map in December 2015. The Map sets out the extent of planned commercial investment in high speed broadband (BLUE and LIGHT BLUE on the current map), and the areas where commercial operators have indicated they will not be investing (AMBER on the current map).
Between November 2016 and March 2017, my Department received and assessed plans from eir regarding proposals to roll out high speed broadband to 300,000 premises in the AMBER area on a commercial basis.
In the context of this assessment, my Department also engaged with the European Commission on State Aid implications, and consulted with ComReg regarding pricing on eir’s proposed network.
My Department concluded that the proposal represented a credible investment plan to provide high speed broadband to 300,000 premises that at the time were included in the intervention area. On the basis that eir had provided credible plans for investment there was no basis for a State intervention for those premises. In April 2017, my Department signed a Commitment Agreement with eir regarding their deployment.
The NBP High Speed Broadband Map was amended to reflect eir’s deployment, as well as the moving of some 84,500 premises into the AMBER area, as it had become clear that commercial operators were unlikely to deliver high speed broadband services to them.
The Intervention Area therefore changed from 757,000 (at end 2015) to 542,000 (April 2017). Following that development, the Intervention Area was finalised for the duration of the procurement process.
