Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----and the Minister allows me to cherry-pick the easiest 300,000 acres, that makes it less attractive for the other contractors to bid for it because one can aggregate it across the 840,000. That is the position. It is the iron law of economics.

If the Minister had read the statement from SIRO yesterday on the reason it withdrew, he would have seen it is a completely different reason. It said it is uncompetitive and not possible to continue in the process given what has happened. What has happened is that Eir has cherry-picked the 300,000. The process has been tilted and skewed. Those are the facts.

What has happened, and Senator Leyden referred to it, but as I recall, his party sold off the company that is now Eir - it changed its name a few times - is that Eir has been asset stripped. The Minister has allowed it become the plaything of international vulture capitalists, supported by the hard left and Fine Gael. The only way the State can have skin in this game now is gone since yesterday because the ESB and Vodafone have pulled out.