Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 April 2022
93. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if he will report on the roll-out of the national broadband plan; the number of premises that were passed and connected as of 31 March 2022; the way that he plans to accelerate the delivery of the plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19070/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraGabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. The British Government published its own energy security strategy last night and it is very ambitious in respect of the ramping up and delivery of renewables, which is something that needs to be factored in to our own energy security review.
This question is about the roll-out of the national broadband plan and the number of premises that have been passed. Some 60,000 premises were to be connected by the end of January, which was then pushed out to the end of March. How many premises were connected by the end of March?
I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach and the Deputy. The national broadband plan, NBP, State-led intervention will be delivered by National Broadband Ireland, NBI, under a contract to roll out a high-speed and future-proofed broadband network within the intervention area which covers 1.1 million people living and working in the more than 554,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with some 679 schools.
Despite the unprecedented challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, NBI has made steady progress on delivery of the new high-speed fibre broadband network under the NBP. I am advised by NBI that as of a April 2022 more than 316,000 premises have now been surveyed and over 166,000 premises are under construction or complete across 26 counties. I am further advised that almost 62,000 premises are now available to order or pre-order a high-speed broadband connection across 22 counties, with more than 41,000 premises passed across 19 counties and available for immediate connection.
In addition to the premises completed, build is under way on more than 124,800 premises, demonstrating the project is reaching scale. NBI has confirmed that more than 9,200 premises have been connected as of 1 April and this is increasing on a daily basis. To date, the level of connections is in line with projections and some areas are exceeding targets.
The Department has worked with NBI to agree an updated interim remedial plan which recalibrates the targets for 2022 to take account of the knock-on effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and other delays to the programme, with a revised target of 102,000 premises passed by the end of January 2023, which is the end of the contract year three.
It remains the Government's ambition to roll out the national broadband plan State-led intervention as quickly as possible. The Department continues to engage with NBI to explore the feasibility of accelerating aspects of the NBP roll-out in order to establish the possibility of bringing forward to an earlier date premises currently scheduled in years six and seven of the current plan. The primary focus, however, must be on addressing the delays that have arisen and ensuring that the build programme gets back on track and is building momentum month on month.
There were a lot of figures in the Minister of State's response and I noted some of them. Importantly, the original target for the end of January 2022 was 115,000 premises. That was reduced to 60,000 a number of months ago. By the end of January, about 35,000 houses were passed. NBI told us at the end of January that by the end of March it would be back on track and would hit that 60,000 target. Now the Minister of State tells the Dáil that, instead of 60,000, NBI passed approximately 42,000 premises between the end of January and the start of April, so it is passing about 3,200 premises a month. At that rate it will not make 60,000 by the end of the year. The Minister of State referred to another target, 102,000 by the end of January of next year. The original target for the start of next year was 205,000. This project has been reducing its ambition and is missing even that reduced ambition. I would be sending up a flare at this stage if I were the Minister of State.
The Deputy is right that the project is behind where it should be at this stage, at the end of year two. The ambition, or the agreed remedial plan, is to double the output of connections in this year compared with the number last year to reach 102,000 by the end of the year. The project is not where it should be. Part of the remedial plan was to discuss the reasons for the delay. Some of those reasons are simply the fault of NBI. It can blame its contractor but it is still responsible for what its subcontractor, Eir, which it works with, does. One of the reasons is the pandemic. Although we thought the delays in the original waves of the pandemic would be over, Omicron, of course, took out many staff. That delayed things but it is not the entire story. Some of those delays are the fault of NBI, and it will be charged penalties for that. I have worked with NBI and, in the past month, have met both the chair of NBI and the chair of Eir. I will continue to do that. We reformed the mobile phone and broadband task force in order that we could co-operate with the local authorities. I believe and am assured that we are now converging and getting back on track, that a lot of the issues they had have now been resolved and that the project is now picking up, accelerating and reaching pace.
The important element is the number of premises passed. That is the real metric. People can avail of broadband when it is available to them. The pre-order and under-construction elements are just a distraction, but it is important there is a pipeline in that regard. Can the Minister of State outline what sanctions there are? Are they just for NBI or are they for Eir too? Eir has a responsibility for its make-ready process. I know there are problems within the system. What sanctions are there? Are they kicking in and, if so, to what extent? If not, when will they kick in and at what cost? What assurance is there that the project is getting back on track?
The project contract includes a schedule of when things have to happen. It also includes a service level agreement, SLA, for the quality of service that has to be provided. Therefore, if NBI's network goes down for a period, it gets charged a penalty fee. If it cannot pass the number of homes it is meant to pass according to the schedule, it gets charged. Those amounts of money are deducted from the payments it gets from each home it passes.
How much is that?
NBI gets money only when it has passed a home. It sees deductions from those payments where there are penalties in place for what it has failed to deliver, so there are-----
How much has NBI been fined so far?
The money is taken out of the payments NBI is due. In the same way money is taken out of one's salary, the payments due to NBI are taken out. If the Deputy looks at the total amount of money paid in subsidy and divides it by the number of homes connected, he will see that we have paid out only 5% or so of the total cost of this project. That is reflective of the number of homes passed. NBI gets money when it does work.
