James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know where to get engineering advice from. I have some questions of my own. I wanted to allow the members to have interaction first and it has been useful. I have a number of questions to put to the deputation as well.

The first question relates to Q-Sat. I presume the ComReg representatives are familiar with this company. For the record, Q-Sat was a private company that provided rural satellite broadband technology to 3,000 rural customers. It went spectacularly bust when some difficult arose in the middle of last week. This meant that approximately 3,000 customers were left without broadband services. I understand they may have been given notice of a few moments or no notice at all in many cases. That is a major blow to the people subscribing to the service and it also undermines confidence in the marketplace. To be frank, it undermines confidence in the regulation of the marketplace.

I wish to invite comment on that scenario. How did it unfold? How can it be prevented in future? What can be done to address the situation for the 3,000 people who have been affected?