Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 6 May 2026
467. Deputy Barry Ward asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport if his attention has been drawn to the concerns of residents in (details supplied) in relation to not being able to get access to fibre broadband due to their houses having direct buried leads, making the installation of fibre broadband more costly and difficult; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31902/26]
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.
The Eircode and estate in question are in the BLUE area on the broadband map which is available on https://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.
The activities of commercial operators delivering high-speed broadband within BLUE areas are not planned or funded by the State and the department has no statutory authority to intervene in that regard.
If a person lives in the BLUE area and after contacting their Retail Service Provider are advised they cannot get access to greater than 30Mbps, they should raise a query by clicking on “contact us” in the Contact section on https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/5634d-national-broadband-plan-map/ and the department will escalate with the commercial operator to investigate this matter further.
The Eircode provided is currently capable of receiving speeds in excess of 30 Mbps from open eir’s local High Speed Broadband cabinet per information available at https://bbchecker.comreg.ie/.
The estate is also included in open eir’s Full Fibre to the Home (FTTH) deployment programme per information available at https://www.openeir.ie/fibre/broadband-checker. The department does not have sight of information that provides an estimated timeline of when commercial operators will provide a full fibre connection to the area, other than what’s on the open eir messaging.
Alongside the NBP intervention contract, commercial operators continue to upgrade their networks throughout the State to primarily urban areas and contribute materially to achieving the Digital Connectivity Strategy targets. Commercial operators have indicated that their networks will be upgraded to all urban areas by 2028.
My department is continuing to monitor these upgrades to ensure any unnecessary barriers to this investment are addressed so that the risk of any gigabit service challenged areas including areas affected by direct buried leads is mitigated. Information gathering and detailed analysis is ongoing with commercial operators to understand the full scale of the risk of these areas.
This data will complement the initial analysis already conducted by my department and will feed into the examination of the optimal policy responses, including cost and legal considerations, to address any identified gigabit service challenged areas. The final scale and location of any such gaps cannot be fully quantified until currently planned commercial roll-out programmes through 2026 are complete.
My department is working closely with the commercial operators in reviewing all scenarios where gigabit challenged areas exist and direct buried leads is one of the scenarios under analysis. My Department are reviewing these scenarios and once the analysis is completed my department will determine potential avenues to address and determine the optimal policy solution, including from a cost and legal perspective, to addressing such potential gigabit service challenged areas.
Other measures under consideration include making the processes to access existing infrastructure easier and ensuring new housing developments are designed to facilitate telecommunications connectivity from the outset.
