The project to deliver broadband to thousands of homes and businesses this year is a month ahead of schedule, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

In January, TDs heard that the company in charge of rolling out rural broadband was running more than six months behind due to the pandemic and other delays.

Revised targets were agreed with the government to deliver broadband to 102,000 premises by January 2023.

The Joint Committee on Transport and Communications received an update from Peter Hendrick, chief of National Broadband Ireland (NBI), and TJ Malone, chief of National Broadband Ireland Deployment, on the National Broadband Plan rollout's progress.

In his opening statement, Mr Hendrick said: 'I'm glad to be able to tell members that we are gaining real momentum in delivering the project. Today, we have 330,000 premises surveyed, which is 60% of the entire intervention area, and detailed designs for 313,000 premises complete.'

In Association with

He said that these 'vital precursors' to the main build are 'ahead of profile'.

'Currently, there are 182,000 premises where build works have either commenced or have been completed, which we see as a leading indicator of progress and project momentum,' he said.

He added that the end of June today will mean, 'the number of premises passed will be 63,652, and there will be over 74,000 premises where the network is fully built.

'Since our last engagement with the committee,' he continued' NBI has progressed our fibre-build activity on six islands off Mayo and Donegal. We will further advance island connectivity and build off Cork later this year.'

The committee heard that since January, an extra 300 workers have been hired, bringing the total working on the National Broadband Plan to more than 1,500.

Mr Malone said the project is in a different place than it had been earlier in the year.

He explained that since all the required systems are now in place, the impact of COVID 'at the moment is not as big', and the only impact it would have now would be 'on the road on the actual build itself'.

Mr Malone added: 'We're probably about a month ahead of where we had predicted. So we've caught up. We're passing and building between 7,000 and 10,000 premises a month at the moment. We're probably a month ahead at the moment, providing we don't hit any other obstacles.

'All that said, there could be obstacles that could hit us, but we would have confidence in it at the moment.'

When asked again if it could come in ahead of the January 2023 target, Mr Malone said: 'That's exactly where we're trying to be. 'We do believe we will bring it in a bit ahead of target this year. And we're all very much aware, in particular for our own workforce as well, the need to get some wins.'