Broadband Infrastructure
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-04
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Niamh Smyth (FF), Cavan-Monaghan

I absolutely commit to sharing the experience of the farmers in the Senator's local area with the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, to ensure something like this does not happen again and to see if any specific issue arose in that particular area. As the Senator stated, this involved 20 incredibly important businesspeople in the local area. I want to ensure we drive delivery of high-speed broadband, particularly across rural and remote areas. In urban areas, there are other ways of communicating but it is not so easily done in rural constituencies and regions like the Senator's and mine. I will absolutely share that with the Minister.
Along with the NBP intervention contract, commercial operators continue to upgrade to achieve the targets of the digital connectivity strategy. Commercial operators have indicated that all of their networks within urban areas will be upgraded by 2028. The Department is continuing to monitor these upgrades to ensure any unnecessary barriers to this investment are addressed to mitigate the risk of there being areas where the availability of gigabit connectivity services is limited. These measures include making the process to access existing infrastructure easier and ensuring new housing developments are designed to facilitate telecommunications connectivity from the outset. I am sure in five years' time, or probably less, we will look back and think it archaic to have had to have those discussions and debates but here we are.
The implementation of the NBP plan continues to align with the delivery schedule and approved funding parameters. The main infrastructure build remains on track for completion by the end of this year. I am satisfied that the programme is advancing steadily and meeting its key milestones. I again thank Senator Costello for raising this incredibly important issue.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-04