Broadband Infrastructure

121. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the measures being taken to address broadband connectivity issues in towns and villages that fall outside the National Broadband Plan intervention area but where residents and businesses continue to report poor broadband service. [66726/26]

128. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport his views that the current broadband supports available to remote workers and small businesses who remain affected by poor connectivity are sufficient; and whether additional measures are under consideration pending the completion of fibre rollout. [66727/26]

I very much welcome the significant investment and progress being made by the national broadband plan. That investment is transforming connectivity across rural Ireland. However, I and my colleagues, Deputies Maeve O'Connell and Barry Ward, continue to raise the issue of urban broadband blackspots. The focus of the Government really now needs to move to making sure that those blackspots are dealt with and that the people who live in Balbriggan and Skerries have connectivity.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 121 and 128 together. I thank Deputy Boland. As the Deputy well knows, the national broadband plan is the Government's initiative to deliver high-speed broadband to all premises in Ireland, both rural and urban, in cases where they did not previously have connectivity. In addition, Ireland's digital connectivity strategy, which was published in December 2022, sets out a number of targets, including that all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a gigabit network no later than 2028. As part of the national broadband plan, the Government appointed National Broadband Ireland, as the Deputy will know, to deliver wholesale broadband services to those parts of the country not served by commercial operators. Premises in the non-intervention or blue area are serviced by commercial providers who are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high-speed broadband services. The Department defines high-speed broadband as a broadband service with minimum speeds of 30 Mbps download and 6 Mbps upload. If a person lives in the blue area and after contacting their retail service provider are told that they cannot get access to greater than 30 Mbps, they should raise a query with my Department, via our website, that will escalate with the commercial operator to investigate this matter further. There may be a choice of operators offering this service in any given area, and further details on this can be found on the Commission for Communications Regulation's website. My Department is continuing to monitor commercial broadband roll-out plans and network upgrades to help ensure that any unnecessary barriers to investment are identified and addressed. This work is designed to mitigate the risk that premises located in commercially served, or blue areas, may remain unable to access gigabit broadband services due to specific infrastructure challenges. It is important to note that my Department's role is focused on ensuring the availability of high-speed broadband infrastructure to all premises. The commercial broadband retailers operating in both the blue commercial areas, and amber State intervention areas, have their own programmes to encourage and support the adoption of high-speed broadband services within the business community. The decision to take up available services is ultimately a commercial matter for individual businesses and their chosen service providers. Measures to encourage the digitalisation of enterprise, including the adoption by small and medium enterprises of available high-speed connectivity, fall primarily within the remit of the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment that delivers a range of educational, awareness and enablement programmes to support small and medium-sized businesses in embracing digital technologies. It is our objective to make sure that everyone gets broadband. I know that it can be a challenge in some urban areas and where that is the case, in the Dublin constituency of Deputy Boland, the Department will engage with them. I encourage where instances like that occur for people to engage, through the Department's website, so that we can follow up.

I thank the Minister. I welcome the commitment to ensure that all premises have access to broadband but I raised this issue in November 2025, which is nearly a year ago, with the Minister, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan. Since then, I have continued to be inundated with complaints from people in estates in Downside, the Brambles, Hampton Cove, Loughshinny, Rush and Lusk. There are just so many in north County Dublin but also in Foxrock and Blackrock, and we are not further along. People are so frustrated that they have literally fallen into a policy blindspot between commercial roll-out and Government-sponsored roll-out. We now need a plan to tackle this. I have raised all of these areas with the Department and we are no further along. Can the Minister of State commit to giving us a timeline as to when we will see the filling of these urban blackspots?

I know that this is an issue that the Deputy has raised on an ongoing basis here. We are in a process. The many parts of the country, including some urban areas, which did not have any commercial providers is rapidly being filled out by infrastructure build out by National Broadband Ireland. Certainly, I have had experience of that in the home that I live in and getting broadband for the first time. I accept the point that the Deputy has made that there are some challenges in urban areas in the blue area in which commercial operators had indicated they would provide a service. From a Government point of view, it is important that everyone has broadband. That is the objective behind the State investment. There is a process though it is taking time but we will continue to pursue it within the Department and assess any issues that arise in those blue areas where commercial providers had committed to delivering. We need to see them deliver. We need to see everyone being able to avail of broadband, including all of the areas in the Deputy's constituency, which she has outlined. I will revert further to my Department to ask them to follow-up further and continue to expedite that process in relation to following those up to make sure that they get the service that was committed to them.

I appreciate that. We have seen how the plan has transformed rural connectivity and we need to see that. The reality is, the road my mother lives on has fibre broadband but the road off it does not. That is replicated in Skerries, Balbriggan, Rush, Lusk, Foxrock, Blackrock and Dún Laoghaire, and we really need to see a plan of action. People should not be told they are living in a blue area and, therefore, have access to commercial providers because that is simply not the reality. I have other examples of people in an estate in Downside where they were told by a commercial provider that unless they can get 50 of their neighbours to agree to sign up with one provider that the provider was not going to invest in the works in that estate. That obviously has competition issues as well as trying to cajole or encourage people into an agreement. We really need the Government to shift its focus from rural to urban and see an action plan so that I can go back to my constituents and tell them when they will be able to get access to broadband.

I accept that, Deputy. I think we all agree that we have seen immense progress over the last three to four years in terms of the national broadband plan. Work is ongoing, has been very successful, delivered ahead of time and below budget. There is no doubt that we do have a situation now where many premises that had little to no broadband in the past, in isolated areas, thankfully have great broadband and, in some instances, much better broadband than urban areas in which commercial operators had committed to delivering a service. Commercial operators must follow through and must deliver on their commitments. Every premises, residential and business, in this country needs broadband and the Government is committed to delivering it for them. I thank the Deputy for raising this again today. This process is one we need to push on with in identifying areas that are falling between both stools. They need a high level of service in the same way as many of those who benefited directly from the national broadband plan have.