National Broadband Plan credited with 1,000 jobs
Over 1,000 people have been employed by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) since it began delivering the National Broadband Plan on behalf of the government in January 2020.
The National Broadband Plan will connect over 544,000 homes, businesses and farms across Ireland to high-speed fibre-to-the-home broadband, using enough fibre to go round the world nearly four times. At the peak of the roll-out, it is expected that up to 1,800 jobs will be created by the Plan.
As the biggest and most significant investment in rural Ireland, the National Broadband Plan is viewed as one of the most ambitious telecoms projects globally and will provide high-speed fibre broadband to over 1.1 million people.
Responsible for designing, building and operating Ireland’s new high-speed fibre broadband network, NBI has grown its team from just over 30 personnel to 230 in the 17 months since work began. NBI is also responsible for managing an extensive supply chain of specialist sub-contractors to help deliver the National Broadband Plan, which has created further job opportunities for over 800 people to-date.
Working in partnership with NBI, over 20 specialist sub-contractors are helping to create extensive job opportunities across the country. While employment has been realised in every county, Kildare (69), Donegal (31), Cork (49), Cavan (23), Kerry (69), Limerick (78), Tipperary (35) Kilkenny (22) and Offaly (28) has been particularly high. 55 positions have also been filled from the live register.
Employment opportunities on the National Broadband Plan span the survey, design and build of the new high-speed fibre network, as well as roles across IT, network operations, sales and marketing, legal and project management.
“Our teams working on Ireland’s National Broadband Plan represent some of the best and brightest minds in telecoms anywhere in the world,” said David McCourt, chairman at NBI. “Since the contract became effective in January 2020, we have rapidly grown our team at NBI and worked closely with our key sub-contractors who are managing expanding workforces to collaboratively deliver on this landmark project.
“As a project of national importance, operating across every county, it is vitally important that we utilise local talent in every area of our build and we are delighted that despite the challenging environment caused by the Covid-19 pandemic that we’ve been able to successfully attract and recruit over 1,000 people who each play their vital roles.”
McCourt continued: “Our teams nationwide have conducted almost 223,000 surveys and over 174,000 designs of individual premises which are the critical first steps in this ambitious rollout. This has led to 92,000 premises currently being in build with over 19,000 currently ready for order. The survey work involves physically walking the routes where fibre will be laid. While working in accordance with the government’s Covid-19 guidelines to keep our teams and the public safe, we are doing everything in our power to ensure we can connect premises as quickly as possible.”
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