Delivery of the National Broadband Plan: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-28 ============================================================ Evanne Ní Chuilinn (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as a bheith anseo sa Seanad anocht chun an t-ábhar tábhachtach seo a phlé. The national broadband plan, as the Minister said, is the single most significant investment in our telecommunications infrastructure in the history of the State. However, it is not just about providing access to the Internet. It is about ensuring that communities across Ireland are supported economically and socially, that we connect communities and that no town, village or home is left behind as we digitise. The NBP is one of the largest capital investment projects, started and supported from the outset by Fine Gael, targeting investment in rural communities, ensuring that every home in Ireland will be connected to high-speed gigabit broadband. It is a project that levels the playing field in the digital era, thereby ensuring that every family, school, business and farm can rely on high-speed broadband utilising the opportunity for connection, commerce and communication. Considering the expertise we have in Ireland in digital technologies and with the opportunities for new technology business startups, access to high-speed broadband cannot be a barrier to entrepreneurship and innovation in the digital space in rural areas. As we become increasingly reliant on digital technologies, not just in our economy and society but as public services are increasingly digitised, it is only right and just that we invest in communities' ability to access these services. However, delivery on the broadband connectivity must be matched with ensuring network resilience and investment in resourcing for enhancing digital literacy so that no generation is left behind in accessing the Internet. Since the broadband plan was signed off by the former Fine Gael Minister, Richard Bruton, NBI has laid cables for more than 444,000 homes, schools, farms and businesses with more than 157,000 premises now connected to high-speed broadband as a result of the plan. The project has been steadily delivering for rural communities, ensuring the digital divide between rural and urban areas decreases. The project has been backed by Fine Gael at every step from its launch to delivery and as a result, the plan now connects more than 400,000 people to high-speed broadband. This is ahead of NBI's projections for where it would be by the end of 2025. While we have faced significant inflation in recent years, the roll-out of the NBP has not been affected and is being delivered ahead of schedule and on budget, as the Minister has said, despite inflation of almost 22% since its launch in 2020. The plan has also front-loaded broadband connection points in many communities that NBI has not yet passed or connected, ensuring there is still access to high-speed Internet in the area before the full roll-out. This strikes at the heart of what the NBP is all about, ensuring no home, school, business, family or farm is left behind in the digital age. The plan is projected to have passed all homes in its intervention area by the end of this year, with a take-up rate already reaching nearly 60% in areas the plan first passed in its early phases. On completion, the NBP will provide high-speed broadband access to more than 570,000 premises, including 1.1 million people, 65,000 farms, 44,000 other businesses and 679 schools, with a minimum speed of 5 Mbps and a network future-proofed for speeds up to 10 Gbps, ensuring communities will be connected for generations to come no matter where they live. We are so proud of our many digital exports in Ireland, with leading start-ups in tech across the country and a highly educated workforce in the digital space. The NBP roll-out now means that wherever you want to start a business, you will have access to high-speed broadband, supporting innovation and job creation in every community, not just concentrated in our bigger towns and cities. According to the EU Commission's Digital Decade country report, we are exceeding EU averages in infrastructure roll-out, with 90% 5G coverage and 74% of premises able to avail of fibre broadband. The NBP has positioned us to take advantage of the opportunities for future business creation in the AI, cybersecurity and other new technology spaces and allows us to continue leading in the digital era with domestic home-rown businesses. As we continue to digitise our public services with applications for public grants, payments and other schemes increasingly focusing on online application platforms, we must make sure that nobody is left behind without the basic digital literacy to access these public services. While the access to broadband may be there, there is still a body of work to be done to improve overall digital literacy rates. We know there is a generational gap in digital literacy, with younger, digitally native generations being streets ahead of older generations. This is not just an older person's issue; there are many people who lack the digital skills necessary to properly navigate the digital space and we must also now invest in people's ability to access digital technology. It is not right or fair that we would continue to digitise our public and many other services without also providing the knowledge and skills base for people. I appreciate that considerable effort is being made across the Departments of children and education under Ireland's Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Literacy Strategy 2024-2033 to ensure every young person has the digital literacy to thrive in their educational and social spaces, but there is still a fundamental gap in literacy rates. Many organisations do great work in providing digital literacy resources for older people, including Age Action, Age Friendly Ireland and many local authorities through our public library network, but this must be supported by an overarching Government strategy, which is simply not there yet. We have invested in technology and the network to allow people to access the Internet, but we must now invest in our people. We must invest in their digital skills and literacy so that they can fully utilise the benefits of the high-speed broadband we have invested so much money in. There is no doubt the NBP is one of the most significant investments in the history of the State to support rural communities. It is a transformative infrastructural project that will connect communities for generations to come and will reduce the digital divide between urban and rural. It is a plan that Fine Gael started, supported and backed every step of the way because we believe that if we are to continue to lead in new technologies and take advantage of the opportunities new technologies like AI present, these opportunities must be available for everyone in our society. The NBP does this by providing reliable, high-speed, future-proofed broadband connection to over 570,000 premises. The investment is paying off already, with connection rates of 60% in the areas first passed by NBI. However, we must ensure we are not only putting the infrastructure in place but empowering people with the skills and literacy they need to utilise this digital connectivity through our national digital literacy strategy, targeted especially at generations that are not digitally native. This is to ensure that in the same way the NBP eliminates geography as a barrier to the digital world, we will not let age become a barrier to accessing these vital technologies. I thank the Minister for coming to the Seanad today for this debate, and I look forward to the rest of the discussion. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-28