Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 October 2025
209. Deputy Michael Cahill asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport when full mobile phone and broadband reception will be available at Ballycleave, Glenbeigh, County Kerry on the N70 Ring of Kerry route; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54450/25]
View answerThe National Broadband Plan (NBP) is the Government's initiative to deliver high speed broadband services to all premises in Ireland.
I have been advised by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) that over 22,000 premises are now passed with a high-speed fibre broadband network and 22,800 premises are available to order/preorder in County Kerry, with over 6,220 premises now connected.
A further circa 4,916 premises in County Kerry will be passed by NBI’s high speed fibre broadband by the end of network deployment. The network build is in progress for the Castleisland Deployment Area (DA) and has an anticipated date of connection of April 2026- June 2026. The Ballingeary, Glencar and Kells DAs are also in the network build phase, premises in these DAs have an anticipated date for connection between July 2026 and December 2026
Further details available on specific areas within County Kerry can be monitored via [www.nbi.ie/reps]. NBI has a dedicated email address, [reps@nbi.ie], which can be used by Oireachtas members for specific queries. It should be noted that NBI provide this information for County Kerry based on NBI deployment areas rather than exact county boundaries.
Glenbeigh is predominantly within the BLUE area on the broadband map which is available on my Department’s website www.gov.ie/en/publication/5634d-national-broadband-plan-map/.
The BLUE area represents those areas where commercial providers are either currently delivering or have plans to deliver high-speed broadband services. The Department defines high-speed broadband as a connection with minimum speeds of 30Mbps download and 6Mbps upload. As per information available at www.openeir.ie/fibre/broadband-checker the area is included in open eir Full Fibre deployment programme and can order a full fibre gigabit connection.
Premises in the AMBER area on the map are to be served by the network deployed under the NBP State led intervention. NBI have advised that the network build has commenced for these premises and have an anticipated connection timeframe of July 2026 - December 2026.
Phone service is primarily a matter for mobile network operators, operating on a commercial basis in a liberalised market, regulated by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg). ComReg is statutorily independent in the exercise of its functions in accordance with section 11 of the Communications Regulation Act 2002.
To assist consumers to choose the network provider that best meets their needs, ComReg continually updates and enhances its online national outdoor mobile coverage map (available at: www.[coveragemap.comreg.ie], which provides information on mobile network operators’ outdoor coverage for 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G mobile networks.
