Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 April 2026
552. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport if a new round of broadband connection point applications will be opened in the coming months; and if not, if a similar scheme to provide free broadband access for community buildings in rural areas will be launched. [28269/26]
View answerThe National Broadband Plan (NBP) is the Government initiative to deliver high-speed broadband to all premises in Ireland. In addition, Ireland's Digital Connectivity Strategy published in December 2022, sets out a number of targets including that all Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028.
As part of the NBP, the government appointed National Broadband Ireland (NBI) to deliver wholesale broadband services to those parts of the country not served by commercial operators, i.e. those premises in the Intervention (AMBER) area.
Broadband Connection Points (BCPs) are public, high-speed Wi-Fi locations in rural Irish communities, installed ahead of the main fibre rollout to ensure areas, within the Amber Area, that did not have adequate broadband services could avail of digitally enabled services such as remote work and study. As part of the NBP (https://nbi.ie/map/), over 283 public sites (libraries, community centres etc) are connected for free public use.
In addition to the public sites, since 2023, all 672 primary schools in the Intervention Area have been provided with technical connectivity via wireless solutions ahead of the fibre rollout to ensure no delays in access to high-speed broadband. The Service Transition Programme is migrating schools from wireless to fibre with approximately 75% of the 672 primary schools migrated to date.
To find the nearest public BCP, an Eircode can be searched on NBI’s website (https://nbi.ie/bcp-map/).
There are no further plans to open a new round of broadband connection point applications in the coming months or to add to the public sites referred to above.
I am advised by NBI that, 465,640 premises in the Amber area are passed across 26 counties and are available for immediate connection with over 171,920 premises already connected to the NBP high-speed broadband network.
