Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 May 2026
663. Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the steps his Department will take to urgently provide a fibre broadband connection to a school (details supplied), which has been without connectivity for over six weeks and cannot be serviced by existing providers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35236/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe National Broadband Plan (NBP) is the government's initiative to deliver high-speed broadband services to all premises in Ireland.
The school in question is in the BLUE area on the broadband map which is available on my Department's website 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.
Per information available at https://bbchecker.comreg.ie/ the school is currently capable of receiving speeds of up to 68 Mbps (part fibre) from Open eir’s local High Speed Broadband cabinet.
The school is part of the Department of Education and Youth’s Schools Broadband Access Programme (SBAP).
The Department of Education and Youth advise that following the decommissioning of the school’s previous contracted retail service providers infrastructure, another retail service provider has now successfully put in place a temporary solution which restored the school’s broadband services on the morning of Friday 8 May 2026.
The school is also included in open eir’s Full Fibre upgrade 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 Open eir will provide a full fibre connection to this premises. However the Department of Education and Youth continue to liaise with the company and will migrate this school to full fibre broadband as soon as it becomes available.
