Apologies have been received from Deputies Malcolm Byrne and Brian Brennan and Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn.

In our first session today, we will hear from representatives from National Broadband Ireland and we will consider the national broadband plan and network resilience. We will suspend while the witnesses take their seats.

From National Broadband Ireland, I welcome: Mr. T.J. Malone, chief executive officer of NBI; Ms. Jenny Fisher, chief executive officer of NBI Deployment; Ms Mairead Meyer, chief operations officer of NBI; and Mr. Barry Kelly, chief financial officer of NBI.

The format of today's meeting is that I will invite the witnesses to deliver an opening statement, which is limited to five minutes. Statements will then be followed by questions from members of the committee.

As the witnesses are probably aware, the committee may publish the opening statement and presentation on its webpage. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Before we move to today's discussions, I wish to clarify some limitations in relation to parliamentary privilege and the practices of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege in respect of presentations they make to the committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Chair to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or any official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Is that agreed? Agreed.

I invite Mr. Malone to make his opening statement.

I thank the Chair and the committee for the invitation to speak with them today. We are only too pleased to discuss the latest update on the overall progress with the national broadband plan, NBP, as well as to provide a more detailed view of the specific areas the committee members may be interested in, such as network resilience and the NBP's role in supporting Ireland's gigabit future. I am the CEO of National Broadband Ireland. I am joined by Jenny Fisher, who is the CEO of NBI Deployment, in addition to Mairead Meyer, our chief operations officer, and Barry Kelly, our CFO.

As CEO of NBI, I am incredibly proud of the team’s work in ensuring that the national broadband plan is being delivered on time and on budget, particularly considering the fact that we started the build at the outset of Covid and are delivering approximately 30,000 more premises than envisaged at the time of the contract signing.

As a reminder for the committee, across all 26 counties there are currently 564,000 premises in the roll-out area, known as the intervention area. NBI is providing a world-class, high-speed fibre broadband infrastructure in these designated areas. Since our establishment in 2020, NBI has built an organisation to deliver the project with predictability and pace, and 2026 will see the completion of the main infrastructure build programme.

The roll-out of the NBP is almost unrivalled in its ambition and complexity and we are extremely proud of the progress that is being made across every aspect of the roll-out, which I can summarise as follows: 100% of premises have been surveyed and designed; 100% of premises are either built or in build; over 425,000 premises, or approximately 75%, are now ready for service on the NBI network and approximately 440,000 will be ready for service by the end of the year; and over 151,000 premises are already connected to NBI's network, representing 36% of all premises passed. It might interest the committee to note that take-up is about 60% in deployment areas that we passed with fibre four years ago. Therefore, we believe this is probably a more insightful metric. We predict, over time, that take-up on this network will be north of 80%. To put this into perspective, the levels of take-up that we are driving not only surpass the targets of this project but also exceed all other international comparisons. In addition, 955 broadband connection points, or BCPs as we know them, have been installed by NBI, 672 of which are located in schools. We have increased our minimum speeds from the 150 Mbps mandated in the contract, to now over 500 Mbps as a minimum speed.

As an open-access, wholesale network operator, NBI does not sell to or have a contractual relationship with end users. Rather, NBI has some 50 broadband providers actively selling services on our network. This brings competition for consumers and businesses, who benefit directly from competitive pricing and products. This progress is directly supporting the Government’s ambitions under Project Ireland 2040, driving balanced regional development and ensuring that every community, regardless of location, can participate fully in Ireland’s digital economy.

In our view, building this world-class infrastructure now ensures that all people and businesses, no matter how rural or remote, will have access to a broadband network capable of supporting the communications, information, education, telemedicine and entertainment requirements of current and future generations. This is especially true in the context of copper switch-off, which is the planned, systematic decommissioning of the old copper network. This is a progressive step to ensure that all premises can access a modern and future-proofed fibre broadband infrastructure and is comparable to when analogue TV was switched off in 2012 and the beginning of a fully digital era, which launched with digital terrestrial TV services.

I now turn my attention to an area that the committee signalled its interest in, namely, network resilience, which coincidentally would also be improved by the decommissioning of copper cables from the pole infrastructure. The NBI network is built to the highest standards with future-proofed technology and typically operates with 99.95% availability. To meet the requirements of our contract with the Department, as well as state aid decisions, NBI is obligated to use existing infrastructure, as this provides a balance between speed of programme delivery with value for money for the State. There are also sustainability benefits in reusing existing infrastructure.

It is important to note a number of factors that contribute to network resilience. Fibre networks are designed in rings, and this assists with resilience because data can travel either clockwise or counterclockwise around the ring. If there is a break or fault in one part of the ring, the system automatically reroutes the data in the other direction so services can continue with limited interruption. As we are still building the network, not all rings are closed. However, when the main build project is completed in 2026, this will close all rings, adding future resilience to the network.

A comprehensive Eir make-ready programme is in place to test and replace all poles on the Open Eir network ahead of any NBI cabling works. To date, in excess of 135,000 poles have been replaced. NBI has 205 exchanges, all with battery backup, to ensure that these critical sites can remain operational for a period even if deprived of mains electricity. Furthermore, NBI has a number of generators at our disposal that can be deployed to exchanges to supplement battery backups to, in future, assist continuity of power pending the restoration of mains electricity. Since Storm Éowyn, NBI has invested significantly in software development which focuses on network analytics and automation to give increased visibility and notification of network issues, enabling faster restoration times. Also since Storm Éowyn, the industry, NBI included, has been liaising with ESB to discuss the prioritisation of restoring electrical supply to exchanges in the event of power outages. At NBI, we have continuous improvement programmes where we pull in all lessons learned from these extreme weather events. These lessons learned will range from network maintenance, internal resourcing and third-party contractor support, right across to customer communications.

I wish to conclude by saying that at NBI, we are acutely aware of how vital reliable, high-speed broadband has become to our everyday lives. We are excited to see how it will be used in the coming years. We are justifiably proud of the work done to deploy the infrastructure on time and on budget, and equally proud to say that we have built an organisation that can plan for, mitigate the impact of and respond to extreme weather events. That gives us confidence in the long-term operation of the network for the duration of our contract with the State.

We welcome the opportunity to take questions from the committee and look forward to its continued support for the delivery of this project for the citizens of Ireland.

I thank Mr. Malone. We are now going to our list of speakers. The first speaker who is present is Senator Garret Ahearn.

I thank the Cathaoirleach. Mr. Malone is very welcome to the committee today, as are all the guests, Ms Meyer, Ms Fisher and Mr. Kelly. I was speaking to them for a second outside and I will say in here what I was saying outside. What NBI has done as an organisation is absolutely phenomenal. I refer to the speed of the roll-out of it, going to areas right across the country. In my county of Tipperary, we live in a very rural area and we now have top-quality broadband. I see it in our local schools and in business. You can now have a business in Tipperary in a very remote area as opposed to being in Clonmel, Dublin or anywhere else. That has a knock-on effect on the economy, quality of life and choosing where you want to live. Everything that goes with that broadband has a huge impact on it. The decision a number of years ago - it was a political decision at the time - was, in hindsight, the correct decision. We saw through Covid the impact people being able to work from home had. If NBI had not started at such a quick pace, it might not have been possible for a lot of people to work.

NBI has achieved this on time and on budget - how? Essentially, inflation has risen. For every project we are doing at the moment, there is always a reason someone needs more money. Costs have increased or services have increased in price. How has NBI achieved this?

It is a good question and I have been asked it a few times. To put it into perspective, since we started the project, up to the end of October we have seen inflation rates of in the region of 22.5%. We have kept ours down to 8% across the board. We have managed to keep any of the inflation with our contractors and our roll-out to 8% over that period and that future-proofs us to the end of the build. We have contracted everybody in until the end of the build as well.

Is that through negotiating with them?

Yes. It is through negotiating. We have a team of people back in the office that I really need to give a lot of credit to, which is our procurement team. It has carried out a great process in securing the right prices, including from material suppliers. We had issues at times where we had to increase our prices but we very quickly went back, when prices settled down a bit, and renegotiated them back downwards after that. That was at the height of Covid and when we had shipment details, etc. We have managed to keep it down across the board. We are very confident out to the end of the programme because we have all our prices secured and locked into place. Great credit must go to the procurement team that is there. The way the contract was set up at the start was good as well. We did not undercut prices at the start. We made sure we put in what we thought the prices were going to be and put in valid prices. It is very often the case that people underestimate the cost at the start just to get the contract and they go up but we were careful to make sure we did our due diligence at the start.

To keep it on time then, did NBI increase its workforce numbers over a certain period of time to make sure it stayed? The witnesses obviously knew, after a year or two, that NBI was going at a pretty good pace and wanted to maintain that.

That is a really good question. We were actually 12 months behind at one point in this programme. At the start of the programme, we got hit by Covid. We had the keys to move into the office on the weekend of 17 or 18 March 2020 and we went into lockdown on 12 March. If the Senator can imagine, we only had 30 people employed at that stage. We now have over 2,000 contractors working out in the field and we have over 300 people working in our back office.

Most of those people had to be hired during Covid. As we were 12 months behind, we got 8.5 months' relief from the Department so that would see us being able to finish the programme at the back end of September of next year. We have actually made up all of that time and pulled all of that time back in, but "Yes" is the answer. We have brought in more than 100 extra staff to our office and accelerated the programme at no additional cost or ask to the Department or the Government. We took that cost on board to catch back up because we believed it was the right thing to do for the project. We have hired around 100 more back office staff and road staff to accelerate and bring the project back in. As of now, we are ahead of what the original targets were. Our original targets were 420,000 homes to be ready for service for the end of this year in the original agreement. There are 420,000 homes ready as we stand here in November so we are ahead of schedule already.

Genuinely, Mr. Malone should be very proud of that. NBI's contractors who are out on the road are very good. When people stop and ask them what they are doing or how they are connecting things they are very good at explaining to people, particularly those who are from an older generation, what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Ms Tara Collins, who is with us today, deserves a nod from the communications point of view. We spend quite a bit of time on it. We are conscious we are on every back road in Ireland and we are all over the Twenty-six Counties at any one time. We took a lot of time at the start to educate the guys in case anybody was interested in what they were doing.

People in my area are very free to ask, "What are you doing here and how are you doing it, and how do I benefit from it?".

No different from my own area.

You need someone with a bit of a personal touch, which is important too. Mr. Malone said the take-up is 60% and he hopes it will get to 80%. What are the main reasons that people do not do it? Is is due to lack of understanding, that they are in a contract with someone else or they do not see the importance of it? What jumps out?

We are much further ahead at the moment than we anticipated. We have seen a much earlier adoption to our network in the early stages of it. However, that slows down and peters out as you get past the early part of the adoption. After four years, we are at around 60%. There are instances involving elderly or vulnerable people. There are also people who may be satisfied with the legacy copper and do not see the need for this or understand it. It is incumbent on us all sitting around the table today to ensure that message gets out. It needs to get out from us and from the Department and Government as to the benefits if switching to fibre broadband and the benefits it can bring not just in terms of broadband but also by allowing people to switch their telephone over and keep the same number in the house. People do not realise that. They do not want to pay for an extra number whereas this combines the two services in one. We have that out there and we will always have it.

When the copper switch-off comes, we have been probably-----

Is that definitely coming?

It is definitely coming. In Europe, we would have been called in the past the laggards of bringing broadband services in. We are now the leaders in bringing broadband services in but we are the laggards in copper switch-off. We need to switch that now and utilise this phenomenal network that has been put out there.

What will that entail or how long will it take to do? I know I am over my time now, Chair.

We think it will take between five and six years from the start to the finish. It is really important this is brought in. I know ComReg is in discussion with Eir at the moment on this issue but it is really important this is brought to fruition.

Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe and I thank Mr. Malone for his presentation. I am not sure whether we should call it broadband or our life support machine because at this stage we all know what it is like if we lose Wi-Fi or Internet connection, even for an hour. Everything just comes to a halt. Mr. Malone referenced resilience and Storm Éowyn. Will he go into a little more detail as to what changes have been made since that seismic experience that none of us ever really anticipated? What can we expect the next time we have a similar experience?

The Senator is right, Storm Éowyn was the most destructive and powerful storm we have seen in possibly 200 years in this country. From a geographical point of view it mapped right across the country. The entire country was under a red warning. However it is important to note that, within 48 hours of that storm, we had 70% of our customers who were impacted back up. Within a week we had 90% of them back up and within three weeks we had 99% back up, despite the ferocity of the storm.

There are huge lessons to be learned and I will let Ms Meyer talk a little about some of the lessons in a minute. Every one of our cabinets in our main exchanges has battery back-up ranging from five hours to 20 hours, depending on the criticality of it. The majority have over ten hours. We have up to 40 generators and we are supplementing the number of generators. We have up to 33 and are putting in another six. We have seen that, once we know where the storm will hit we need to move the generators more quickly to those locations. We found that we could not travel during the critical period - the red warning period - and that roads were blocked in certain areas and we could not get access. What we will do is, in the event of a storm, is move closer before the storm.

We have invested significantly in bespoke software which I believe is industry-leading, not just in Ireland but across Europe and the world. Ms Meyer's team have developed that over the past number of months. I will let her give more detail but, to give one example, a ticket that would have taken us 40 minutes to raise during the storm can now be done in 40 seconds. We have invested significantly in that and I will ask Ms Meyer to give some more detail as to what we are doing on this.

Yes, absolutely. Mr. Malone has covered quite a few areas there in terms of investment and the learnings we have taken from the storm. One of the other things we have looked at is our enclosure programme. When Storm Éowyn hit only 11% of our network was protected with that east-west diversity. We are currently at approximately 34% protected now and by the time we get to the end of this that will be all premises on that diversity with the rings level.

We also took the decision to invest heavily in our software development and that is looking at the network analytics and being able to pinpoint where in our network the faults have occurred so we can automate the jobs going out to our contractors and give them the information as to the size of the fault and where we believe it is located. Again, that helps the whole recovery and resolution timeline. It also improves the communications we pass on to the retail service providers. It is very important they have the right level of communication and information to be able to communicate to their end users and customers. That is something we invested heavily in over the past 12 months and, as Mr. Malone said, something that took us 40 minutes in the past we have now cut down to about 40 seconds. On top of that, it also automates the notifications that go out to the retail service providers so they have the full suite of information they need to keep customers fully informed.

To add to that point, the Senator asked how it would help in future storms. The closest we have seen since then was probably Storm Amy that came on 2 or 3 October. We had every customer back up and running within eight days. Some other operators are still struggling to get customers back on even today. It shows that having that software and being able to move at that pace has been great.

It is incredibly impressive and I look forward to seeing it in action. NBI has to work in tandem with the electricity supply as well. Is NBI doing so and seeking to identify failures there in order to ensure it will not let NBI down in future?

Since Storm Éowyn, in fairness, the Minister pulled together a task committee and put us all into the one room to do this. Every single operator got hit during the storm and the ESB was no exception. It lost nearly 800,000 customers at the time. It has set up its own workforce within ESB since then and it is working really well with us and the industry. It has now accepted all of our critical 205 exchanges I talked about onto its critical prioritisation list. In the event of a storm now, they get priority, or are on the ESB's priority list to get power restored as quickly as possible. We did not have that beforehand, although we did try to have it. In fairness, the ESB has responded really well and has now installed what it calls storm managers who will communicate with us pre-, post- and during the storm. They will have somebody available and have communications every six hours to give us an update as to where it is.

The real piece NBI would like to get to with the ESB is an API into the network checker it has on each individual household in order that we will be able to understand exactly which houses are with and without power.

Will Mr. Malone clarify for everyone listening what is an API? Acronyms need to be explained.

Apologies. The application programming interface, API, is just a link into the ESB's system that will tell us which customers are without electricity. At the height of the storm there were probably about 35,000 customers who had no electricity at their address.

It informs us that we can bring it into our system and to get back up and running to customers who have power more quickly. It lets us prioritise where we need to go.

I will not use my full time for the first time ever because I have to be in the Seanad in 30 seconds.

I thank the witnesses for joining us. The opening statement references the fact that the broadband plan is being delivered on time and on budget. Not to take away from the statistics the witnesses have given on the 420,000 homes and everything else that is ready, but I want to clarify some things. Was an eight-month extension required? Did NBI attract significant financial penalties of up to €3 million for missing deadlines? Was that €3 million figure included in the budget or where does it come from? How can NBI say the project is on time and on budget when it is not?

It is on time and on budget. We were behind at the early stages. We were given eight and a half months' relief from the Department because it recognised there were difficulties due to Covid. That said, we are back on track for the original timeframe. We will not use that eight and half months. It is there for us to use if we need to use it as relief, but we will not use it.

We were put back on the original timeline and budget with an additional 30,000 customers who were not in the contract that was originally signed. There were 537,000 customers when we signed the contract and there will now be between 564,000 and 567,000 customers by the end of 2026, which is the original seven-year timeframe. The Deputy is correct on the penalties. Some €2.7 million was imposed in penalties levied against us from the Government for delays at the early stages, but there is also a mechanism in the contract to reimburse those penalties if we accelerate the programme. We are now on track to get that €2.7 million back.

The full €2.7 million.

The full €2.7 million should be back to us by the end of this year.

That is fantastic. Well done. I will stick to the money side of things. Earlier this year, it was stated that up to €41 million had been paid out in adviser payments and, I understand, €6 million in local authority payments to support the implementation of the plan. Is there still a need for payments to advisers at such a late stage in the project? Will that dwindle as the project continues through the process?

The consultancy adviser fees to which the Deputy refers relate to fees the Department is paying. I cannot comment for the Department.

Is there still a need for that at this stage in the project?

At this stage in the project, there are still supervisory needs. As we finish the build, we imagine and hope that the oversight from that point of view would dwindle. Again, that is the Department's decision.

That is no problem. It was said the parties spoke at length on investment in software development focused on improving network issues and enabling faster resolution times. That was identified as a key priority. Has the investment been matched? The system sounds fantastic, such as the 40-second turnaround for ticket items and so on. Has there been similar investment in the field workers, engineers and equipment required to go out into the field and resolve issues identified via the up-to-date software?

It is one of the key areas, not just the field but also the back office. We have added another six people to the back office to deal with preparedness for storms and the services required to make sure critical areas of the business are ready for that. In the field, we are upskilling workers and bringing in more fibre splicers. Our crews who carry out installations are not fibre splice trained, but we are training them to deal with it so that they will be able to move across. Ms Meyer may wish to comment on that.

That comes with investment in skills and training and in the testers the engineers will use. On any one day, there are between 250 and 300 engineers in the field carrying out connections on the network. Training them to deal with fibre splicing means during a storm we can reappoint them across to focus on repair work and splicing cables. That will help the resolution and recovery timeline significantly.

Well done. I want to touch on reconnection times. We all know how bad Storm Éowyn was and the impact it had not just on homes but also businesses, post offices and lines of survival for many older and rural people. In some places, it took over a week to restore connectivity. People want to hear that the witnesses can categorically guarantee a swifter reconnection time this winter. I was thrown when reference was made to Storm Amy. There were eight days of reconnection during the most recent storm. Will there be significant timelines like that this winter or are the witnesses confident that should we be hit with a big storm, we will be able to turn around reconnection within a faster timeline?

As the Deputy said, Storm Éowyn was the worst storm in a generation and we still reacted well within that period, considering the devastation across the entire country. We are doing everything we can to improve on that. We are building a network where nobody else wanted to go and which is not located in urban towns but, rather, in the most remote parts of the country. We have left a booklet with the committee which gives members an idea of some of the jurisdictions and geography we are dealing with. Our priority is to get to those areas, restore services and get them back up and running. As I said, we are now moving equipment closer to those areas. There will always be a bit of a lag. It is not within our remit to do everything.

I appreciate that. It would be remiss of the committee not to ask these questions because the fear people have coming into bad weather is that they will be left stranded and isolated in the way they were during Storm Éowyn.

We are in a very good position going into the winter. As I said, we have invested heavily in software and human resources.

My constituency, mid-Louth, is still in the build category and is not connected. Can the witnesses provide an updated timeframe for that area?

Ms Fisher is the deployment CEO.

I will give the Deputy three different statistics. The first relates to how many premises are available for preorder and order, which in Louth is 63%. Some 61% are fully available for service and there is a 50% connection take-up rate in Louth. We are expecting the full county to be completed by August 2026.

Mid-Louth is probably at the latter end of the timeframe.

I thank the witnesses for being here and offer my congratulations on a project well run. It is great to hear a bit more detail about how NBI achieved that and the workings of the company. As a new Deputy, I would like to understand the governance structure. I have had a look on the website and it is quite clear in terms of the project agreement how it is set out. In operational terms, what interaction does NBI have with the Minister? Is that at arm's length? The Minister is listed as a special share owner. I want to familiarise myself with the unique set-up of the organisation.

It is unique. I would say no contract in the history of the State has been drawn up that is anything like this or the governance that goes with it. I understand it comprises between 3,400 and 3,500 pages. That grows every time we tell the story.

The day of signing a contract and putting it on a shelf is far from where we are. We live, breathe and die by this contract every single day of the week. We are managed within an inch of our life by the Department on a daily basis. We have a number of meetings and interactions with the Department every single day. Ms Meyer probably has more interactions than anyone else. There are probably seven or eight different working groups in the Department, concerning connections, bills, etc. It is a very complex contract. I do not know who thought an organisation could operationalise a 3,500-page contract. It has been done well. In the early part of the contract, there were probably 85 people in the Department who oversaw this on a daily basis, a number which has been whittled down as time has gone on.

We obviously have interactions. The Minister has attended a number of our board meetings as well.

Would Mr. Malone describe it as a positive working relationship that is running well?

I would have said at the very outset that the governance that was there probably in the early stages restricted us from getting up and running and getting to the speed we did. However, when I look back now at the quality of the network we have delivered and we have been forced to deliver by the terms and conditions of the contract, it is second to none. As we get out of the build stage and look forward to the next 20 years or 25 years of running this contract, it does give us great confidence that we have a quality network. It means that we are not going back to clean up a mess that was left in the early stages.

Exactly. I thank Mr. Malone. That is really helpful. I want dive into broadband as a key utility, which I think other speakers have referenced. In his opening statement, Mr. Malone mentioned that the infrastructure covers 96% of the country. For the other 4% that is covered by other operators, are they private companies?

We cover 564,000 premises and they are spread everywhere and anywhere, as you can imagine, the whole way around the country. We cover about 20% of the premises in the country but to get to those premises, we have to pass by 96%. Our fibre has to build out to it. We cannot offer service to anybody outside the intervention area. I am not sure if the Deputy has seen that map that was there from the initial-----

Yes. I have a bunch of other questions, so for that 4%-----

The rest covers an awful lot more than 4% of the country but we are overlapping and passing each other. We are running fibre to 96% of the country but there is a lot of that 96% to which we cannot offer service.

That 4% which, as Mr. Malone has said, covers a broader or larger number, are private companies.

Yes, they are all private companies.

In our current context, broadband is viewed increasingly as a key utility, like water and electricity, and it supports the running of schools. I had a recent query from a constituent who has a sleep apnea machine, which she cannot implement in her home because of broadband shortcomings. From a health perspective and from so many different others, it is fundamental to our lives. What can we do to ensure affordability for every household, presuming that there is this percentage which are being provided for by private companies?

Probably about 80% of the country is being provided for by us and we are a private company too.

I appreciate that but Mr. Malone has just described that very close relationship with the Department whereas those other companies would not have that.

Yes. Regarding affordability, the regulator obviously regulates pricing within the industry we are in. If we look at broadband prices over the past seven or eight years, there has been an investment of €5 billion in telecommunications. Sometimes in this country we do not give ourselves enough credit for the communications networks that are here. We are one of the top four or five countries in Europe for connectivity.

It is the pricing that I have concerns about and it is not the only area. Even where there are regulators, we are seeing difficulties with the actual pricing structure that consumers are meeting.

If we consider the €5 billion investment in this country, inflation has gone up by 25% over that period of time, and the telecommunications prices have dropped by 8%.

It is not really getting to what I am looking for in terms of that affordability piece but that is fine. I have one more question because I only have a minute left. From an employment perspective, I want to get the witnesses' thoughts, as experts in the area, on remote working and how Irish businesses can facilitate remote working or engage more in the digital space for their own services or goods. Does Mr. Malone see the State readily taking advantage of that or the business sector taking advantage of it? What are his thoughts on this?

I think the Deputy hit the nail on the head. It is really important. As we go into next year, we will have what we call the bring it home campaign. With this, every county in Ireland will have full access when the NBP finishes so from June onwards next year, and we think it will be incumbent on everybody here, every Minister and every TD, to really push the importance of this for the digital economy. We spent some time with the Minister on the Aran Islands recently and he mentioned at the time we were great at building infrastructure for people to leave this country. Now we are building an infrastructure, so that people can reside in any part of the country no matter how remote it is. We talked to people on the island who are now able to compete on a world-wide basis from their home in Achill from a business point of view and it is about getting that message out. Obviously, we have a huge role in doing that and the service providers that sell our products do as well. For the investment that has gone into this network and the network that we have, it really is important. Next year we take over the EU Presidency, so with that in mind it is hugely important that everybody pushes on this.

Remote working is the area I am quite interested in because there is not legislation there at the moment beyond people being barely allowed to ask for it or certainly not having the right to it. That is something we need to look at as the Legislature.

I thank the witnesses for taking the time to come in to us. I just have a couple of brief specific questions. First, I want to acknowledge the investment in broadband in Ireland and, as has been said before, it is by far the biggest investment in rural Ireland since rural electrification, as we know. How much nationally has the NBI received from Government investment? Then specifically, how much have counties Carlow and Kilkenny received?

I will give the top-line figures and Ms Fisher will give the others. To date, in subsidy from the Department, we have received €1.3 billion and there is a cap of €2.6 billion on that. That means there is €2.1 billion, with a further contingent subsidy. There is a difference between contingent subsidy and contingency. Contingent subsidy was put in for areas of risk that we did not know at the time what they might be but it was always meant to be drawn on or given back, either way. There is €500 million in that pot of which we have probably drawn 5% so far. To recap, it €1.3 billion to date and €2.1 billion to €2.6 billion is the cap over 25 years. Ms Fisher will talk about Carlow and Kilkenny.

In Carlow, the total investment will be €32 million and in Kilkenny it will be €72 million.

For my constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny, it is brilliant to see a €100 million investment. As it stands right now, how many premises would have access to say high-speed broadband and how many premises need to get access?

I will take Kilkenny first. The good news in Kilkenny is that the main deployment is already complete. That means that 18,687 premises currently have access to the high-speed broadband and we have seen a 43% take up there. There are some remaining premises that we still have to complete out to reach the 100% threshold, which will bring it up to over 19,000 in total.

That is 19,000 in the intervention area that falls under our remit.

Yes, I understand. What are the figures for Carlow?

For Carlow, 5,572 are available to order and pre-order and we are seeing a 40% take up there. The total number when we have completed Carlow will be 8,558.

Work is complete in Kilkenny and there is just a little bit more to do in Carlow. Is that correct?

Absolutely. Carlow will be complete by the back end of next year.

Brilliant. I know NBI has a certain remit as opposed to the national geographic bands but rural areas in particular sometimes can feel a little bit left behind when broadband and such things are being rolled out. I have got reassurances from the witnesses for their segment of Kilkenny but for the areas outside of NBI control, does it have any capacity to take on more to get rollout quicker, or is this something the company would be interested in?

There are areas, which we call the black spots. When this contract was originally envisaged by the Department, high-speed broadband at that stage was considered to be anything that was 30 Mbps or above. Some eight or ten years later from when the project was envisaged, 30 Mbps probably does not really cut the mustard when it comes to high-speed broadband. The gigabit society that we have built also goes into rural areas but there is a small section of we think somewhere between 100,000 to 150,000 homes that is not getting speeds above 30 Mbps.

They are the people I want to help. How can we help those people who are living in a black spot in Borris-in-Ossory or Graiguemanagh?

I know the Department is putting a lot of work into this area at the moment.

We would like to be part of that. As we said in our opening statement, we have built a team that can bring predictability and pace to this project. It is coming near an end, so before we start to wind down we would like to keep winding up.

Excellent. I appreciate that.

Does NBI have any data it could share with us today on its current service reliability? I realise that we have storms or one-off, major events, but how frequent are outages? When they do occur, what is the average duration?

I will let Ms Meyer talk a little more about this because it comes under her remit, and I want to do her justice. Regarding the top level, we have a network availability obligation of 99.95% uptime. We have never gone below that.

That would not be bad.

It would not be too bad. It is measured on a quarterly basis. We have never dipped below 99.95%.

What is the position regarding the 0.05%?

The Deputy is asking if there is a chance. The rate is measured quarterly. Even in the quarter of Storm Éowyn, we maintained the 99.95%. Ms Meyer might want to add a little to that.

Service availability is one of the metrics we consider. We also have stringent key performance indicators or service level agreements, SLAs, that we work to, particularly across the repair side of the business. We aim to have at least 85% of all fault reports repaired within two days. That is a metric we measure ourselves against. We consistently or regularly outperform it. For a severity-1 incident – that is, an incident or fault impacting 750 customers or more – we aim to have it repaired within a four-hour period. There are some really tight SLAs that we and our contractors and field engineers work to. We have developed a whole team that is very responsive. As soon as we see a network alarm or issue coming, we work towards meeting the SLAs.

Excellent. I am looking at my time. I am sure the Chair might indulge me because we are down a few bodies today. I just want to talk a little about cybersecurity before we move to the second round. What steps is NBI taking to protect its network from cyber threats and to ensure data security? Has it put measures in place? What is its position in that regard?

I am happy to take that. When we think about cybersecurity, in particular the NIS2 regulations we are required to comply with, we think about it in two ways. First, like all businesses, we are really focused on the information and cybersecurity side of things. The second concerns network availability and security. From a corporate point of view, we have a very comprehensive information security programme and ISO certification. Therefore, we have great confidence that the systems we have in place are protecting us.

In terms of our infrastructure, we are the pipe. The data travelling along the pipe cannot be attacked through our broader system. We think about the system’s security and availability in terms of both prevention and cure. Prevention includes what Mr. Malone and Ms Meyer have talked about, including the structure and design of the network. It is a case of having the rings so there is alternative routing if there is a break and of ensuring our exchanges are located in areas that are robust away from flood plains, etc. The cure side is about having all the responsiveness Ms Meyer has described, including through teams who can respond quickly and diligently to an event wherever it occurs.

I welcome the witnesses. This is a hugely positive story for Ireland. County Kilkenny, where I come from, has a large creative sector, including animation, which benefits greatly from high-speed connectivity. It often involves sending very large files internationally. It has had a huge benefit in the sense of keeping employment in our locality. It also helps with our climate objectives in that it ensures people can work where they live in rural communities. This is opening up immense opportunities, particularly for rural Ireland.

My first question relates to that. It is probably not NBI’s role to produce this, but is there any qualitative analysis of the impact of the roll-out of high-speed fibre broadband in rural communities? I am referring to affording people the opportunity to work from home and to farmers, schools, libraries and community organisations being able to avail of high-speed broadband. Is there any ongoing process of gathering data or qualitative analysis of the societal impact of this roll-out?

Ernst and Young, EY, were commissioned by the Department to carry out a server review to see whether the NBI network and the national broadband plan were doing what they were designed to do. That was probably two years ago now, and I believe the report came out last year. It was to determine whether the NBI network was achieving exactly what the Deputy referred to, namely bringing people back into rural communities. We found that it was. There are statistics in the report in this regard. At that time, NBI was still very young and had probably only been up and running for two and a half to three years. My understanding is that EY has been commissioned to rerun the analysis next year because we are five to six years in and the network is almost built. There will be more statistical data available in that new report. There definitely are data to support the metrics in question.

That would be really useful as a longitudinal study because, as Mr. Malone said, the societal impact is going to be huge.

I have a specific question on farming. County Kilkenny is a very diverse and rich agricultural area. Given how complex farming has become, with much reliance on mapping and data relating to water quality, carbon monitoring and so on, is NBI seeing a significant uptake among farmers, and is there support from the main farm organisations? We met Teagasc this morning on farm advisory services. Is there a plan in place to ensure greater uptake among farmers?

I will let Ms Fisher give an update on the take-up within the areas in a moment. On interaction with the various farming bodies, the answer is “Yes”. We have had numerous meetings with the IFA. We work very closely with it and Macra na Feirme, and we sponsor various activities organised by the latter.

There is definitely considerable support from and willingness on the part of those organisations. We go into the heart of every community, whether it is the GAA or the farming community. The support we have received from the IFA has been strong from the outset, including in the sense of getting the message out that we would be building in people’s areas. Now that we are out there and have the network built, it is a question of the take-up on the network and trying to get people across. From the figures Ms Fisher will mention, we can see there has been a higher rate of adoption among farmers whose farms we have passed with the network.

The IFA recently launched a programme called Experience the Difference, which helps farmers to understand the benefits of fibre broadband. Mr. Malone made the point that we have engaged with Macra na Feirme. Seeing young farmers using fibre to identify sickness in animals and increase yield and productivity is really quite extraordinary.

In Kilkenny, 100% of farms are now ready for service, and we are seeing a take-up rate of 48%, which at this stage in the programme is above expectations.

That is excellent. I understand Kilkenny was one of the first counties to go live, thanks to a local authority that was very forward-thinking and progressive in its support.

This committee quite rightly spends a lot of time delving into the operations of other organisations, including in terms of underperformance and over-expenditure on projects. Are there lessons to be learned from the broadband roll-out that could be applied to other projects or to meeting other major infrastructural challenges? Rolling out broadband was a huge infrastructural challenge, given our dispersed rural population. Are there lessons from the national broadband roll-out that could be transferred to project delivery elsewhere?

I believe so. We have talked about the complexity of this project. Everyone else walked away from it, it was that complex, with significant associated risks and penalties.

Even the incumbents in the State that own the infrastructure we are building out walked away at the time because they thought the risk was too great.

There are definitely learnings to be taken from this and there will probably be a case study done on it once we are finished. Getting the structure of the contract right at the outset was incredibly important, albeit I talked about it being complex and trying to operationalise and live and breathe it. The Department has been very involved in this project, which is also probably one of the reasons for the success of it. We have worked well together and we collaborate well together. There are obviously grey areas in any 3,500-page contract that need to be ironed out but it is about getting it right from the start and not undercutting it from a price perspective so that you are not constantly coming back and delivering bad news from that perspective and then working with us to get the speed back into the programme and get the acceleration back into it. Both parties worked very well to get that done.

I thank Mr. Malone.

I have a few questions but first, like all the other speakers, I congratulate NBI on its work to date. Taking up from Senator Noonan, this work is essentially a large-scale plumbing project around the country where no one else wanted to do the plumbing or the pipe work. I sat on the public accounts committee for seven or eight years and we have had many situations where private contractors have been brought in and the contract is wrong at the beginning. The children's hospital is an absolute farce. There are loads of other examples but that would be the biggest one. Getting the contract and the terms of it right initially is absolutely essential. The fact that, in a way, this is quasi-State driven is essential as is having the support of all stakeholders.

Is that a model we need to look at for some complex projects in this country? There are projects coming down the line for this country. For instance, a project I have real issue with is the famous pipeline coming from Lough Derg, which is environmentally seriously questionable. Cost-wise they do not have a clue - not a notion. That is an observation based on the model the witnesses ended up with through a set of circumstances over several years. I was at the Cabinet when this started. It is a model that I think, collectively, we should all look at.

Where were there blockages? Were there any blockages from local authorities or from different organisations which had to be smoothed out in the beginning?

We spent an awful lot of time on this in the earlier stages. We keep mentioning pace and predictability. For any contract, that is the key thing for us, that we can get 10,000 or 12,000 homes passed per month. We took a lot of time at the start of the project to get that right. There are 31 different local authorities across 26 counties and every single local authority has a different idea of where, when and how a new telegraph pole should be put up. That was news to me at the start of this and I am in this business for 25 years. We spent 18 months, believe it or not, in the early stages of the project, bringing together every local authority and finally getting what good looked like, so that when we did submit a licence application to put up a new pole - we have put up 65,000 of them since we started this project - we knew what good looked like and we knew we were going to get it rather than sitting there, hoping and wondering and then getting a rejection. You would then have contractors sitting on the side of the road.

So, it was the standardised approach.

Standardising was a huge part of that. One further part that would really help - and we have talked about resilience on this project all day long - would be the ability and the statutory right that in the event of a storm we could stand a new pole in line with the existing pole without having to go through a licensing process at that stage because we could get customers back up straight away.

Mr. Malone means a pole in a different location.

Either adjacent to the pole that has been broken or snapped-----

Within a short distance.

It would be within a short distance in the same line. It could be within a metre of it. Once we can get back up-----

That is a good idea.

That has single-handedly prompted-----

The fact NBI does not have it is kind of crazy.

It is and it is probably single-handedly the biggest delay in trying to get people back up and running.

That is a good point and I might take that back.

I live in a very rural area - at the top of a mountain. Although NBI was doing its work, there were three or four of us up at a height who the dot did not come on for. I had to dig trenches to the nearest pole. This was a good few years ago but is that the same across the country? There are very isolated and hard to reach areas, so there are gaps out there. People have been facilitating their own work to get down to the road but are there any plans in place for those locations so that those gaps can be filled? To be honest, not everyone has the capacity to talk to somebody to see what ducting and fibre has to be put in, how the connection is going to be done and then physically get people to do it.

From our point of view, the build should go right to your premises. When you go onto the private land of a premises, or on to that road, we should put poles up. Obviously, we have to follow a hierarchy under the state aid rules as to value for money, speed of rollout, etc., but in the event of a private landowner wanting to change that design and go underground from an aesthetic point of view, they can make a contribution to it or they can put it in themselves but absolutely we should facilitate that.

As regards the gaps, I have been past it now for years, otherwise I would not have a family because I have two young kids. As regards the gaps analysis, I saw NBIs maps earlier. Does it have a detailed maps, by county, of the gaps currently? This just so we could see them.

For the blackspots the Chair is referring to, the Department would have the information of those that are not getting-----

The clerk might ask for that.

Regarding Storm Éowyn and the impact of all that - I am putting my final two questions in one - I get what was said earlier and I take it on board but could Mr. Malone outline what kind of resilience changes NBI has made? This is going to end for NBI. It is one of these projects where we will get to an exhaustive point. What is the legacy resilience as regards where we will be at that stage and how will it be managed going forward? The first question relates to the difference. I am convinced that every year we are going to be facing storms a couple times a year and they are probably going to get worse. What is the difference between last year and this year? Once NBI sails off into the sunset or sails off somewhere with our thanks, from a legacy point of view, what will be left behind and how will the resilience be maintained?

I might answer the second part first, if that is okay. We are not sailing off anywhere. We have this contract to run and maintain for the next 25 years.

I know that but what I mean is the work will have to scale down.

Yes, the build will scale down but we will still have the maintenance-----

My point is the network will get to a point where this will be more or less exhausted, so NBI will be scaling down as an organisation. The organisation will be moving to resilience and maintenance rather than actually putting it out there so how do we ensure that happens?

First, the difference between last year and this year is we have invested massively into software. We have worked on the battery back-up within all our different locations and we have analysed the critical sites we think are out there. We have changed the battery sizing depending on that, so where we have a critical site, we could have up to 20 hours of battery back-up in it which gives us plenty of time to get generators to site. We have also increased the number of generators we have out in the field. We have had conversations with ESB and we are now critical on its list, which is a very important step for us.

In general, we have put additional people into the back office and into the field. We know we are in a much better position.

To answer the second part of the question, we have built our organisation around that evolution. We call it "Project Evolve" internally. That is evolving from what was originally the build into a transitional-----

You go small, big and then back down because you will not need this many.

We will not need the same number of people on the site that are there at the moment. Most of those people are building the network, not maintaining it. The main force is needed to build it. For maintenance, you need a smaller number of people.

That is why I am asking.

We have scaled the organisation and the numbers going in. We have people who will transfer from the build team to the operate and maintain team. Part of Ms Fisher's and Ms Meyer's team in the build will move into where Ms Meyer will oversee them in maintenance. We took the decision to put Ms Meyer over connections and maintenance as well as the operation of the build about two years ago and it was predominantly done with what the Cathaoirleach mentioned in mind. It was so we could make the transition smoother and better.

As part of that, one of the things we have been very focused in in-life operation is multiskilling our engineers so they can do a connections job or a repair and maintenance job and we can switch them between activities.

I have met many of them. They have good social contacts as well, in fairness to them.

I apologise for being late in. I assume many of the questions have been asked. The decision taken by Government some years ago was the right one in the face of much opposition. A lot of credit has to go to former TD Denis Naughten in his role as Minister at the time. He drove this project on and we would not be this far on if those decisions had not been taken. It is important to put on record the work he did.

I assume the witnesses have spoken about the storm and repair times for connections. Where are they at? What is the coverage of schools and nursing homes across the country? I will be parochial. Do the witnesses have an update on my home county of Longford? When will each part of the county be covered?

Everyone is switching providers because of costs and deals that are being done after 12 months with one company. I do not understand the difference in the service. There seems to be a different strength from different providers, despite the fact it is the one network. In the village where I live, the local exchange is at the bottom of my garden, yet some people 2 miles out the road have a better service than I do.

I will take a couple of those. I will let Ms Fisher give the Deputy the good news about Longford in a minute. Outside of the storm, we have a service level agreement, SLA, whereby 85% of any repairs have to be done within two working days. Since the inception of this, we are working at around 90% so we are well above the SLA.

Of the 955 broadband connection points, 672 are schools. We covered every school in the intervention area. To get them up and running because of Covid and everything like that, we initially put in a microwave dish to give them a direct point-to-point connection. As we pass them with fibre on the programme, we swap out that microwave dish and bring fibre in. By the end of this year, we will have close to 500 of those 672 schools switched from the microwave dish to fibre connectivity. Over the next 12 months, we will switch the rest to fibre.

On switching and strengths, NBI is the wholesaler. We wholesale to the 50 broadband sellers. We offer a minimum of 500 Mbps service, uncontested, to everybody. We also offer 1 Gbps, 2 Gbps and 5 Gbps services. It is up to the customer to choose the one they want from the service provider. We can provide up to 10 Gbps at any point. At the moment, we just offer up to 5 Gbps but the network is future-proofed and built to offer, uncontested, up to 10 Gbps to any end user. By changing out a bit of equipment in the house like a modem, we could go up to 25 Gbps. The network we have built is future-proofed for generations to come.

As Mr. Malone said, it is good news in Longford. We have completed the main build so 98% of premises have already got access to fibre. The remaining 2% will be closed down as the new premises that have come into the area since we started the project and the deferred premises are completed.

Technology moves very quickly, so when Mr. Malone says "future-proofed", how many years is that for?

The Deputy is absolutely right. We have a contract for 25 years so we have to have it future-proofed up to then. We are putting in fibre and fibre is limitless. The old legacy copper had contention on it and we could only send a certain amount of signal down it at any one time. There were an awful lot more electronics on the system, which degraded over time or if water got into them. Once you get outside our exchange, there are no electronics. It is pure fibre, pure glass and pure light. The speeds we put down that depend on the different lasers we send down. It is future-proofed for generations to come.

At the start of the project, the decision was taken to deploy XDS-PON in the network. That gives the same speed and ability to download and upload data. For any small business or anyone in a rural area uploading files, there is the ability to upload them at speed. Many traditional services gave decent enough download speeds but it was very hard to upload or share files. We went for a future-proofed technology from the start to make sure that bandwidth and service for uploading and downloading would be available.

There are cases going back years where businesses had to fund infrastructure. I know of one engineering business in particular. They were downloading maps and designs and were based in a rural location. They needed to do it if they were to survive as a business and had to put in a significant investment. Is there any support or help for businesses that have had to do that?

For any business in the intervention area, it is up to us to get fibre to their premises. The only other thing would be work they have to do on premises themselves but that is something most businesses would normally be used to. We bring it directly to the premises. I was talking to somebody recently who is like that. He is downloading a lot of files and living on the top of a Wicklow mountain. He was paying €500 per month to have that direct link to it. Now our fibre is outside the door so he can pick that up at the normal cost that anyone in an urban area has.

I mentioned nursing homes. I know work was done during Covid with broadband connectivity at nursing homes.

Not specifically. The key areas we looked after were the broadband community points within the regions. It was taken at the time that it would take seven years to roll out broadband. The broadband officers in each local authority designated a number of areas we could provide broadband to, so people in the community could come to those. When Covid happened, we switched to including schools as part of the broadband community points. If nursing homes are within the national broadband remit or intervention area, we will pass them the same as any other premises.

Mr. Malone mentioned broadband officers. I am from Longford and am being parochial, and rightly so. The broadband officer working in the local authority, Christine Collins, has done a massive amount of work on the ground linking in with NBI and dealing with issues. Even as public representatives, we went through her sometimes. That is an important link.

They have really been great across the board. They really have.

We only have a couple of minutes left because we have the next session coming in. Does Deputy Cleere have one final question?

Yes, I have one final question and will be very brief. Would NBI ever consider establishing community hubs that could serve as alternative service points in the case of significant network failure? Is that something NBI has looked at?

We have a number of those community points out there at the moment.

They are on our priority list. If we look at our hierarchy of getting restoration of services back the minute we get hit anywhere, business community points and vulnerable customers are right up there. Then it comes, wherever the break is, to the greatest number of people who are off. The hierarchy is to get business community points back up and running as quickly as possible.

I thank the witnesses for their time here today. We appreciate their input. We will now suspend before we go to our next session.