Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 15 July 2020
16. Deputy Duncan Smith asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment when broadband will be provided to each home in north County Dublin under the national broadband plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16045/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraI wish to congratulate the Minister on his new role and to genuinely wish him all the best. I extend those good wishes to the fellow spokespeople who will be taking a special interest in these portfolios. I hope we can all work together to mount challenges, reach conclusions and move forward with what we want to see in the area of communications, climate action and the environment.
My question is a local one but an important one. It concerns north County Dublin. When will we see timelines for the provision of broadband to the homes and businesses covered in the national broadband plan?
I thank Deputy Duncan Smith. This is one of the most interesting areas. One learns so much about the infrastructure that supports our society. I look forward to working with the Deputy on this common cause.
The high-speed broadband map, which is available at www.broadband.gov.ie, shows the areas in north County Dublin which will be included in the national broadband plan's State-led scheme, as well as areas targeted by commercial operators. The map is colour-coded and searchable by address and Eircode postcode. Premises in the amber area will be provided with high-speed broadband through the State-led Intervention, the contract for which was signed in November 2019. Some 6,050 premises in Dublin Fingal fall into this category.
The blue area represents those areas where commercial providers are currently delivering or have plans to deliver high-speed broadband services. Some 57,338 premises in Dublin Fingal fall into this category.
The light blue area represents Eir's commercial rural deployment plans to roll out high-speed broadband to 300,000 premises, including in Wexford, as part of a commitment agreement signed in April 2017. A total of 194 premises in Dublin Fingal fall into this category.
The NBP network will offer premises within the amber intervention area a high-speed broadband service with the minimum download speeds I mentioned earlier and passing 115,000 premises, also as stated earlier. All counties will see premises passed in the first two years and more than 90% of premises will have access to high-speed broadband within the next four years. Design work is complete or ongoing in target townlands across 17 counties and progress is being made in serving in excess of 40,000 premises surveyed to date. I am advised that contractors are due to begin surveying townlands in Skerries in late quarter 3 of 2020. Further information on deployment activities associated with the roll-out can be found on the NBI website http://www.nbi.ie.
My Department is engaging with National Broadband Ireland to explore the feasibility of accelerating projects, as I said earlier. These discussions are ongoing with a preliminary position to be arrived at by the end of the summer.
The website is useful up to a point, and has been for a number of years, in identifying the townlands. The issue is knowing how long these townlands will remain amber or when they will go live with broadband. That is a big job for the Minister to deliver on. Throughout the pandemic we have seen the benefits of working from home, but we have also seen the challenges. Some households in the constituency I represent may have two adults along with one, two or three children all needing broadband to work or study from home.
People have often had to use the mental health services. Yesterday the Covid committee heard a presentation on the challenges that poor Internet provision brings to online mental health provision. North County Dublin is as rural as areas in counties Mayo, Kerry, Wicklow, Meath and others. Similar to those areas, it needs a broadband service. Those townlands will need timelines as well as their colour coding.
The Deputy is right. Everything has changed following the pandemic. Householders are rightly seeking information.
In Dublin Fingal some 6,050 premises are due to be provided with broadband under the NBP scheme. In the current plans the blue area where commercial operators are delivering or have plans to deliver, it is almost ten times that number at 57,000. That is subject to change. I expect other operators, some of which I mentioned earlier, to respond to what they see as an increase in demand. Even the networks were under serious pressure during the pandemic because the volume of data we were all using went through the roof. Our networks held up for the most part but the current system is probably at maximum capacity. As well as the NBP, we will need significant private sector investment to respond to that demand. I hope to get clarity and certainty on that, working with those operators to ensure they roll out and demonstrate to their customers where they are rolling out new networks because there is demand there.
I urge caution on the private sector and having to row back on them. With a new Government and a Minister with a strong track record in fighting for this, we need to strengthen the NBP and give confidence to people that it will deliver. Those 6,050 households cannot be left behind at the end of the list. The State needs to provide them with what is now an essential service. Communication about this is key. We have had issues whereby broadband technology and infrastructure has gone halfway up a laneway in north County Dublin because they have bundled a number of houses rather than a geographical area. All these factors undermine the confidence in broadband provision, not only in north County Dublin and in Fingal, but throughout the country.
I understand what the Minister is saying about the capacity issues, but we need the State to lead on this. It is his responsibility to improve confidence in the national broadband plan to deliver for north County Dublin and the rest of the country.
I agree with the Deputy. Some very high-profile people have criticised the NBP. Strategically for the State, the guarantee that no house will be left out is critical. It is not relying on the market and we will intervene in areas where the market cannot or will not deliver. The mapping of that has been done and it is effective. The broad approach in identifying those houses is the correct one.
The Deputy is correct that there has been considerable frustration in houses where they see fibre or cable going up part of a road and then stop. The advantage of the NBP is in hopefully now a four or five-year rather than a six or seven-year timeframe - some such accelerated timeframe - we will cover every single house. That will be critical for the entire country.
