90% of Leitrim of will not be connected to National Broadband plan until 2025 or 2026

Speaking in the Dail on the National Broadband Plan (NBP) Deputy Harkin stated that in June 2020, the then Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Richard Bruton, said that "All counties will see premises passed in the first two years and over 90% of premises in the State will have access to high-speed broadband within the next four years.".

That, Deputy Harkin said, would mean full access under the NBP by mid-2024. Addressing Minister Ossian Smith Deputy Harkin stated, “If we talk about 90% access, Leitrim County Council has confirmed that more than 90% of Leitrim properties requiring intervention in the National Broadband Plan will not have access because they will not be connected until 2025 or 2026”.

Deputy Harkin, having looked at the figures for Sligo, said that by the end of 2022, broadband coverage under the NBP would be approximately 16% and at the end of 2023 it would be about 35%, leaving a further 60% of all premises still not connected until 2025 or 2026.

She continued “I have listened to the debate and I heard the Minister of State saying that people would like broadband tomorrow. He is correct and that is fine, but for 90% of Leitrim and 60% of Sligo it is not tomorrow, it is not the day after tomorrow, it is not the year after tomorrow and it is not the year after the year after tomorrow. That is what businesses and families in those counties are facing", she stressed.

In his response to Deputy Harkin, Minister Ossian Smith said that he was examining everything he could do. “I asked the Minister if he would specify what he was examining and what actions he intended to take that would make a difference to the people who were waiting in Sligo and Leitrim?"  

The figures for Donegal were also unacceptable, she said, and emphasised that next week’s Dail debate on the right to work from home would be meaningless for all of the people in her constituency who would be waiting to at least 2025 or 2026 for acceptable broadband service under the NBP.

Deputy Harkin concluded that the Minister had spoken about broadband helping to deliver balanced regional development but from the figures available this was not the case for the north west. She emphasised that there was no balance in the delivery of broadband to the north west which was once more being placed at the back of the queue in terms of balanced delivery to the regions.