Broadband Infrastructure
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
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Alan Dillon (FG), Mayo

I would like to thank Deputy O'Connell for providing a debate on this important Topical Issue. I welcome the opportunity to outline the position on behalf of the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport.
As the Deputy has outlined, the national broadband plan, NBP, is the Government’s initiative to deliver high-speed broadband to every household, business and farm in Ireland, ensuring all premises in the country are covered by a gigabit network no later than 2028. It is the largest infrastructural project in rural Ireland since rural electrification, spanning 96% of Ireland's landmass. The NBP is delivering high-speed broadband to over 1.1 million people in more than 23% of premises in the State. This includes over 64,410 farms, 26,350 non-farm businesses, 693 schools and 27 islands and it is fast transforming those communities.
As one of the largest public investments in the State’s history, the national broadband plan is designed to address market failure, ensuring universal high-speed connectivity and supporting balanced economic growth, competitiveness and social inclusion across all regions. We are delivering strong progress on these challenging targets. Deployment momentum is strong and the main infrastructure build is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026, bringing the project in ahead of schedule and running under budget. In addition, commercial deployments have also advanced strongly, with the latest figures released from the regulator showing that 90% of premises now have access to gigabit connectivity, which is a significant increase of 32% since 2020.
As part of the roll-out, the Government identified a need to deliver broadband services where commercial operators would not operate. National Broadband Ireland was appointed to deliver the wholesale broadband service to those parts of the country located in the intervention areas.
Already, over 1.5 million homes have been passed across the State, and this will complement the Government's priority around the digital connectivity strategy, ensuring Ireland has a multitude of connectivity in regard to fixed-line operators while also delivering the plan for high-speed broadband services in the non-intervention areas.
Actually, I want to correct that. In support of the national broadband plan, Eir has already passed over 1.5 million homes across the State. SIRO has reached a milestone of having passed over 700,000 premises for full broadband. Virgin Media has advised the Department that it has upgraded its services to over 700,000 premises with full broadband.
The Department is continuing to monitor upgrades by commercial operators to ensure that any unnecessary barriers to the availability of high-speed fibre broadband are addressed and the risk of any gigabit service-challenged areas is managed. Information gathering and detailed analysis is ongoing with the operators and it is understood that a full-scale risk assessment will ensure that any potential gigabit challenges are addressed. These data will complement the initial analysis already conducted by the Department. The Department is working closely with the commercial operators in reviewing all of the scenarios that the Deputy has raised in regards to direct buried leads. Analysis by the Department will continue to provide avenues to address and optimise policy in regard to other areas where black spots need connections.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-14