Oireachtas Newsletter | March 2023

Ireland is now one of the best countries in Europe for broadband as eir fibre passes 1 million homes and businesses.

Last month we announced a major milestone, eir has passed a record one million homes and businesses across Ireland with our new high-speed fibre-to-the-home (FFTH) network, meaning that Ireland is on its way to becoming one of the most fibre-connected countries in the world. eir has committed to rolling out its Gigabit Broadband network, which is capable of speeds of up to 10GB per second, to 1.9 million front doors, or 84% of homes and businesses, by the end of 2026. The project will be completed two years ahead of the Government’s target to achieve nationwide high-speed broadband coverage of speeds in excess of 1,000 MB per second.

Eamon Ryan, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications comments on the milestone

“We are witnessing a double-tracked industrial revolution of our time, a revolution in renewable energy along with a revolution in digitalisation. Both of these changing landscapes are fundamentally interconnected. At a macro level, if we are to stay ahead of the energy and renewables curve, we need to ensure that technology firms, energy investors, off-shore wind companies know that Ireland is a modern, digitally advanced country to locate in. At a more micro level, high-speed internet access is increasingly important to be able run businesses or farms, to utilise further smart technologies to make those homes and businesses more energy efficient, to facilitate working remotely or to study from home in any part of the country, for example.

"The Government commitment to providing high-speed broadband to every premises in Ireland by 2028 is well on schedule. The National Broadband Plan is designed to reach the hardest to reach places. In order to ensure nationwide connectivity, we see that it works best in partnership with the commercial sector. I congratulate eir on leading the way to meeting the goals of the National Digital Strategy, exceeding their own targets in the process.”

More than one million homes and businesses now passed by eir’s High-Speed Fibre Network

Click below for a county by county breakdown of premises passed so far and the target number of premises for each county.

One Million Times Before Video

Watch a video on what it takes to build a fibre to the home network of one million premises.

One Million Data Stats Video

Watch a video on what it actually means to have a network of this size in terms of the data numbers.

More than half of questions sent to the eir Oireachtas mailbox relate to broadband availability, to help answer these questions we have added deployment progress to the open eir website, including a county by county reach and investment page, plus we have the open eir Broadband Checker map, which will clarify what broadband technology is currently serving a specific eircode.

Best wishes,

eir’s Oireachtas Team