Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 2 October 2025
314. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport if he will publish quarterly progress reports on the fibre broadband roll-out in larger rural towns, including Skerries and Balbriggan; if he will ensure local representatives are kept informed of delays or changes to roll-out schedules; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52739/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Government is committed to the rollout of highspeed broadband across the country, and indeed the National Broadband Plan (NBP) is the Government's initiative to deliver high speed broadband services to all premises in Ireland where the commercial telecom operators' reach will not extend.
Along with the NBP intervention contract (with National Broadband Ireland (NBI)), progress is being made by commercial operators in expanding their next generation networks throughout the State and ensuring the targets set out in the Digital Connectivity 2022 strategy are achieved.
Skerries is predominantly located in the AMBER area on the broadband map, which is available on my Department's website: www.gov.ie/en/publication/5634d-national-broadband-plan-map/
The AMBER area is to be served by the network deployed under the NBP State led intervention.
Balbriggan is largely in the BLUE area on the broadband 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.
National Broadband Ireland have advised that the majority of premises in Skerries are ready for service, and 2,409 premises in the Skerries Deployment area are available to order / pre order. The remaining premises are currently undergoing survey work and have an anticipated date for connection of October 2026 - December 2026.
The latest information on when high-speed broadband will become available to premises in the Integration Area can be found on NBI’s website, at nbi.ie/map/. This website is regularly updated providing the expected timeline for delivery and status of any works that are initiated at any point in time.
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, or report in that regard. However, ComReg does provide an online tool to check on the available broadband options at a particular address. See: bbchecker.comreg.ie/
NBI is bringing fibre broadband to 564,000 premises across the Intervention Area. The rollout is divided into 227 Deployment Areas, each averaging 25 kilometres, although some extend beyond town boundaries due to network design.
NBI also has a dedicated email address, reps@nbi.ie, which can be used by Oireachtas members for specific queries.
