National Broadband Plan
Dail Éireann — 2023-02-28
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Ossian Smyth (GP), Dún Laoghaire

The Deputy is absolutely right. The NBP is revitalising rural Ireland. It is allowing people to spend time in their home village or at their home farm, with their family, looking after somebody and they can spend time and spend money in their local area. It might not be every day of the week, but just the being able to go back to where they are from and spend time there is breathing new life into areas. You can see it with the new businesses that are springing up in villages around the country. Our contract with NBI states that it does not get paid until it connects people. It gets paid for each premises it connects, so it has a clear incentive. After it connects a premises, there is then a subscription revenue. That is the incentive for it to do the work, and it avoids the problem whereby somebody has not been connected and yet we are still paying. I am very grateful for that.
If the Deputy wants any details on the roll-out in Cork or in any other county, I can provide specific details if it is of use.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-02-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:38+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-02-28