Mr. Alex Chisholm:

It is important to appreciate that Eircom has always been a very profitable company. The examinership process it went through last year was because it took on a huge amount of debt under a series of private ownerships. Its operating profitability has remained very respectable and comparable to other incumbent operators throughout Europe. As a result of the examinership, as the Deputy mentioned, a figure of €1.4 billion of debt was written off, which was approximately one third of the total debt it had. This is what it was thought necessary to get the company to a manageable level of debt given its profitability. If Eircom feels it is losing money on the universal service and that it has net costs, it is open to it to make an application to us as the regulator to be compensated for these losses. It has made one such application, which was for 2009 to 2010, and we must publish our view of this matter at the end of the month.