Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 January 2026
614. Deputy Peter Roche asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport if his Department is aware that areas in rural Ireland, such as Mountbellew in County Galway, continue to experience significant gaps in mobile phone coverage and remain effectively dead zones for cellular reception; if he will provide an update on measures being taken to address these coverage deficits; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [73228/25]
View answerMobile network operators are continuously enhancing and improving their network coverage across both rural and urban areas. However, I am aware that the quality of network coverage is not uniform across the country.
While the availability of mobile phone coverage is primarily a matter for mobile network operators, operating on a commercial basis in a liberalised market they are regulated by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).
In the first instance, where customers are not receiving the coverage, they should contact the customer care team of their mobile phone operator to make a complaint regarding poor coverage and follow their official complaint procedure. Complaints, if not resolved to the consumer's satisfaction, can then be escalated to ComReg.
It should be noted that ComReg completed a Multi-band Spectrum Award in January 2023 to assign long term rights of use in four spectrum bands to enable operators to provide improved services to meet increasing consumer demand for mobile services. This award represented a 46% increase in the harmonised spectrum assigned for the provision of wireless broadband services, including 4G and 5G, in Ireland and included significant coverage obligations for operators.
Those MBSA2 licence obligations place a key focus on delivering improved coverage to population centres, such as places where people work and live, rather than solely focusing on geographical coverage. They also focus on improving network coverage of the national primary road network. Those obligations come into effect on an incremental basis 3, 5 and 7 years after the licences were first awarded in 2023. As such, it is expected that ComReg will assess operators’ compliance with their 3-year obligations under the MBSA2 licence this year.
Operators continue to add new capacity to their networks using their newly acquired radio spectrum. The timing of the improvements delivered by mobile operators are influenced in part by their ability to acquire and build new sites for increased coverage.
While my Department has no role in developing site-specific strategies for mobile coverage improvements, the Department’s Digital Connectivity Strategy published in 2022 sets ambitious targets for fixed and mobile connectivity. A refresh of this Strategy is currently being undertaken.
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 at coveragemap.comreg.ie which provides information on mobile network operators’ outdoor coverage for 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G mobile networks.
