The subsidised provision of fibre broadband across all regions of the country is critical to Ireland's economic and social progress. Despite being plagued by delays, National Broadband Ireland has stated it is confident that all 227 deployment areas will be completed by early 2028. While the broadband project may be almost four years away from its projected completion, existing commercial suppliers of broadband, such as Imagine, which services large parts of the country, now has an immediate and serious financial viability problem. Imagine is now closely examining its immediate future in the market and the outlook for it is bleak without Government support. Imagine is one of the key suppliers of high-speed broadband using fixed wireless access technology. It currently has 47,000 customers across every county in Ireland of whom 2,400 are in Tipperary. These are predominantly rural connections. Some 40,000 of its customers fall into the defined national broadband intervention area, which ensures they will be connected to high-speed broadband within four years if the projected completion dates are met. If Imagine is forced to wind down in the coming months without a planned transition to the NBI, there will be a blackout for an unsuspecting 47,000 customers. The impact of this would be catastrophic. Allowing the unplanned wind-down of this commercial provider would set back the impacted regions across the country for years. The threat posed to businesses, emergency and medical services, schools, remote workers, farmers and all local service providers is incalculable. Community centres and local charities and sports clubs would lose an invaluable local link. Communicating online with loved ones abroad would almost become impossible. Homes and businesses that depend on having reliable contact would be cast adrift. Positive advancements made around rural regions of the country would begin to evaporate. Restoring them could realistically take decades. It would plunge large parts of the country back to pre-broadband days. The Government needs to give serious consideration to this very real eventuality. I ask the Taoiseach and his relevant Ministers to urgently meet existing suppliers such as Imagine.

The Government needs to identify a constructive plan that will ensure the continuation of high-speed broadband services while work is under way to roll out the national plan. Provisions must be made for the real possibility that thousands of people in Tipperary and across the country face blackout if private broadband suppliers pull the plug on the only services currently available to the customers.

I thank Deputy Lowry for raising this important issue. Let us begin on a point of absolute agreement. The Government does not wish in any way to see any rural area, or indeed any area of Ireland, least of all in County Tipperary, lose connectivity. That is the exact opposite of what we have been working to achieve and making good progress on over recent years with the national broadband plan, which at its heart has been specially designed to support rural and remote areas, which were at risk of getting left behind without intervention. Ultimately, as the Deputy knows, the national broadband plan will connect 564,000 rural properties. I am very pleased that it is now rolling out on time and on budget but I take seriously the point the Deputy makes. While, as he will understand, I cannot comment on an individual private company, it is fair to say any commercial operator would, of course, have been aware of the Government's national broadband plan. There are regulatory processes that need to be observed, but the Department of communications has been engaging with the company and I encourage that engagement to continue for the reasons the Deputy has outlined. The company has also been engaging with ComReg, which, again, is part of its regulatory obligations. Our absolute concern here is that there cannot be disruption to consumers. Any such disruption has to be mitigated and minimised for all the reasons the Deputy has outlined, whether that is remote working, remote working hubs, remote learning hubs, farmers, small businesses, homes, community groups - all those who have come to rely on, and develop their business or their family life around, the provision of broadband and the very positive impact it has had.

For my part, on the basis of the Deputy's raising this in the Dáil, I will speak to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, who is behind me. Their Department is abreast of the situation, and there is engagement between the Department of communications and ComReg. I will come back to Deputy Lowry and see if we can provide him with an update.

I welcome that the Taoiseach acknowledges that we cannot have disruption and that it should be avoided. A myriad of issues threaten people if Imagine and the other broadband suppliers decide to leave the market in advance of the arrival of the national broadband roll-out. We must do everything possible to avoid that scenario but at the moment, we are drifting towards it. I will be here representing the 2,400 householders in Tipperary, as well as others from other counties if something is not done. I know that there are meetings going ahead and that the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, has been engaged in consultation but we need a bit of action. Even from the Taoiseach's reply to me, I can see that this is complicated and complex and that there are many agencies involved. There needs to be a political input here to get a solution to ensure there is not an interim period during which 47,000 homes are left without broadband. I ask the Taoiseach to follow up on this and ask the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, to redouble his efforts to find a solution fairly quickly.

I thank Deputy Lowry again for raising this issue. The Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, has been here to hear his comments directly, and he and the Minister, Deputy Ryan, will continue to keep Deputy Lowry updated on this. As I said, I cannot comment on an individual company, for obvious reasons. There is a regulatory process and engagement with the Department and ComReg. As Taoiseach, however, I want to make sure that rural areas do not lose connectivity. We are all trying to move forward with the roll-out of the national broadband plan to make sure that connectivity is brought to every part of this country, most particularly rural and regional Ireland.

County Tipperary is getting an investment of €118 million under the national broadband plan. In total, 31,000 premises in the county will be connected. Over 17,000 of those premises can already order. As recently as last Friday, we saw 3,000 homes, farms and businesses in Cahir become ready to order, in areas such as Ardfinnan, Clogheen and Burncourt. It is now also live in places such as Tipperary town, Clonmel, Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel and Nenagh. In the county the Deputy represents, therefore, the vast majority of homes and businesses to be served are now either ready to order or under construction. Some 57% of the premises due to be served by the national broadband plan are ready to order now, and 27% are under construction. However, I take the point he makes about the interim and the disruption, and we will continue to engage on that.