The organisation has been criticised in the past for delays and for changing its targets multiple times.

National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company responsible for delivering the Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP), has claimed that it is progressing ahead of schedule.

65,000 homes, farms and businesses are being moved to an earlier completion date in 2025 than had been originally scheduled, the organisation said, which means that these premises should be able to avail of a connection to the NBI’s network up to nine months sooner than previously anticipated.

This number includes 32,000 premises that have been brought from 2026 into NBI’s schedule of works for this year.

Peter Hendrick, CEO of NBI, said: “The huge progress that was made on the roll-out in 2024 means we can deliver high-speed broadband to more homes and businesses earlier this year and leaves us in a strong position to complete our roll-out on time and on budget,” he said. “With just two years remaining, we’re working tirelessly to ensure we meet our commitments and provide communities with the connectivity they deserve.”

The NBI also said that as of today (6 January), it has made high-speed fibre broadband available to 320,829 premises, with more than 110,043 premises already connected to the NBI network through one of almost 70 participating broadband providers.

“Areas where the network has been live for over 18 months are reporting take-up rates exceeding 50pc, far above international benchmarks. Over 4,500 new premises are connecting to the network each month.”

Previous criticism of NBI

In May last year, the NBI claimed that the project was on track to pass 300,000 premises in 2024. However, the company has been criticised in the past for delays and changed its targets multiple times.

In April 2022, a report by the Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) said that the NBP “does not represent value for money to the taxpayer”. There had previously been an agreed target with NBI to have 115,000 premises passed by the end of January 2022. An interim remedial plan was subsequently submitted by NBI which had a revised target of 60,000 premises.

The actual number of premises passed by the network by 31 January 2022 was 34,454, according to the PAC report.

By February 2022, only 6,000 homes had signed up to receive fibre broadband.

The NBP has also enjoyed some success, however. Last November, an interim evaluation report by EY found that the NBP is halfway to its target.

It found that the progress showed a “significant step in Ireland’s journey towards bridging the digital divide”.

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