Ms Joanna Murphy:

I thank Deputy Collins for the question. I welcome the comments of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation earlier today. Unfortunately we cannot agree on one particular item. The contract extension was set down in order to facilitate a new tender. What was communicated to ConnectIreland was that within the second six months, which was described as "blue ocean", there would be an opportunity for the tender to be reissued. We in ConnectIreland would have bid for the contract as part of a competitive call and would hope that our work was sufficient to win such a contract. A public information notice was issued on 23 September 2015, with a budget earmarked. To our disappointment that was never progressed and we were left in a state of dismay when we found out the week before Christmas that it was the intention to dismantle all the good work that has been done. That is the difference we have with the Department. That was not our understanding of the extension. The point was quite expressly made to us that there was a need for ConnectIreland to stop promoting to facilitate a new tender.