Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

We got €6.4 billion from willing investors who bought shares in Eircom, which in today's money would be €9 billion. That amount of money particularly for a rapidly redundant technology, that is, copper and wires, would give a significant dent in providing money for jobs. If the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, said he was going to sell off redundant technologies and get €9 billion, €7 billion of which would go to jobs, that would be an interesting scenario. I have argued for some time that the copper wires are useless and should be replaced by fibre optic cable and the actual technology is so outdated as to be irrelevant in the modern world.

See this speech in context