Political Representatives

Our employees and indeed our contractors are not immune to COVID-19 and the restrictions that were imposed at various stages of the pandemic.

The fact that places where workers would normally avail of personal hygiene services and rest-stops were closed during the restrictions was very impactful.

As an example, in January, during the Omicron wave, one contractor had 60% of staff out, either with COVID-19 or in isolation.

 At bid stage, NBI’s deployment plan envisaged a 7 year programme – meaning that premises were always going to be passed and connected in 2026.

NBI is tasked with deploying the high-speed fibre build programme across all 26 counties, with all counties expecting to experience some element of the survey, design, build and connection work simultaneously. There has never been a project like this attempted.

We are actively working in 102 Deployments Areas across 26 counties and we have almost 130,000 premises available to order or pre-order connections in 18 counties today.

The capacity of this project is expanding all the time and we believe this year, 2022, will see real confidence grow in the project.

For instance, in Waterford over 5,500 premises are going live in the county this year.  That is over a third (36%) of all premises covered by the programme.  Other counties will see similar construction progress through 2022 and 2023.  

We would encourage people building a new property to engage with the Eircode process as early as they can.  Once they have their Eircode they should notify the Broadband Officer in their Local Authority.

National Broadband Ireland does not control the scope of the Intervention Area under the NBP, and therefore has no authority to add premises not pre-approved for service. 

DECC advises that commercial operators have indicated their plans to supply Gigabit services to all premises in the BLUE area of the NBP Map by 2026.  Under State aid rules, the Department is not permitted to displace commercial investment by intervening in areas where commercial investment exists or is planned, as to do so would be an infringement of these State aid rules.

This is one of the most frequently asked questions from political representatives and members of the public of NBI. The Intervention Area under the National Broadband Plan is not an exclusion zone for private operators. The is nothing in the contract between NBI and the Irish Government that prevents a private operator from extending their existing infrastructure 200, 300 metres or 500, 700 metres further along a road to reach additional premises.

Can existing networks be extended? Yes. However, the extension of existing infrastructure that is owned by other operators in the market is not a matter for NBI, it’s a matter for the operator of the existing infrastructure.

The contract for the National Broadband Plan largely envisages a fixed fibre connection to deliver high-speed connectivity to the over 560,000 premises in the Intervention Area.

The contract allows for 1-2% in the form of ‘alternative technology’ but NBI envisages this will be for premises that are extremely difficult or expensive to reach.

The Department is of the view that where any ‘alternative’ is considered; that it must be able to deliver the same capacity for end-users.

NBI is using various third-party infrastructure including eir and enet, leasing for 25 years over the lifetime of the project and contract. NBI has regular contact and a strong working relationship with both providers.

The EMR (Eir Make Ready) programme is vital to our fibre deployment programme. Eir is involved in pole replacement, duct remediation and the clearance of blockages to enable the NBI fibre build.

NBI is also working with 31 Local Authorities across Ireland as part of our deployment plan. It took time to put in place an agreed national structure around licensing with these local authorities and we are pleased to say, in the main, this is working well. The structure was agreed in May 2021 and was an essential component in bringing about certainty around how NBI would engage with local authorities and where and when we could deploy.

Recent media reports have said NBI believes it is possible to complete this project over 6 years.   We have a growing confidence in the build pipeline, and it remains our ambition to reduce the overall timeline of the project.

However, to do so requires additional capacity in the Eir Make Ready (EMR) programme, whether undertaken by eir or by NBI through a fit for purpose self-install product.  This remains an area we continue to explore actively with eir, the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) and the telecoms regulator, ComReg.

If NBI is to accelerate the programme, and do so effectively, there are many moving parts that would all be necessary to move forward together.

There are many protections for the State within the Project Agreement.  These include mechanisms to ensure value for money is achieved and that payment of subsidy is only made when detailed milestone achievement criteria are fulfilled.  There are also prescriptive requirements to ensure that the standard of service being provided by NBI is best in class. 

There are also provisions which ensure alignment between NBI’s and the State’s interests; this means that the better NBI performs, whether by saving costs or increasing revenue, the State benefits through clawback mechanisms. 

NBI is adopting a best in class approach to corporate governance and the Minister has an appointee on the Boards and Audit & Risk and Remuneration Committees of NBII and NBID.

We have a growing confidence in the deployment plan, underpinned by significant volumes of completed surveys and designs and build in progress.  It remains our ambition to reduce the overall timeline for delivery of network.

If NBI is to accelerate the programme, and do so effectively, there are many moving parts that would all be necessary to come together.  For example, we would require additional capacity in the Eir Make Ready (EMR) programme, whether undertaken by eir or by NBI through a fit for purpose self-install product.  This remains an area we continue to explore actively with eir, the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) and the telecoms regulator, ComReg.

€2.1Bn is the baseline amount of subsidy available to the NBP. There is a further €500M available in the event that certain evidenced circumstances occur, resulting in additional costs to the Project.

It is standard in construction projects – from doing building work on one’s house to building motorways – to create a contingency budget like this, to be spent only in certain specific circumstances.

Up to 31^st December 2021, NBI had received subsidy totaling €177m.  An additional €193m is budgeted to be drawn down in 2022.