National broadband plan: Rollout to miss target by 50,000 homes this year

Just 27,000 homes are currently in a position to be connected under the National Broadband Plan.

The rollout of the National Broadband Plan (NBP) has come in for stinging criticism as it emerged that just 27,000 homes are currently in a position to be connected to the network.

Ahead of an appearance at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) by representatives from the Department of the Environment, Climate, and Communications — the department which awarded the contract to sole bidder Granahan McCourt in 2019 — this morning, the chair of PAC Brian Stanley said that the NBP “won’t be available at the end of the decade at the rate we’re going”.