The matter of the national broadband plan has been raised on several occasions. It is State infrastructure. I imagine the Taoiseach is aware that it is eagerly awaited in the constituency I represent which covers counties Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal, Cavan and Roscommon. What is the up-to-date position on the plan?

The current state of play is that the national broadband plan is going ahead. Contrary to some reports, the process has not been paused. It is continuing in parallel with the commercial deployment of high-speed broadband by commercial operators. A total of 52% of premises in Ireland have access to high-speed broadband. With the national broadband plan that figure will rise to at least 77% by the end of next year. Eir is delivering high-speed broadband - predominately fibre to the home - to 300,000 premises in rural Ireland. That is subject to a commitment or agreement between Eir and the Minister, whereby Eir has committed to build high-speed broadband infrastructure to serve these 300,000 premises. As a result, they will not need State national broadband plan intervention. The intervention area has been finalised at 542,000 premises and the procurement process is continuing in parallel.