Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There will be rich pickings in any scheme. If one is picking fruit in a field, some fruit will be ripe and some will be unripe. Companies will naturally pick out the best parts of any scheme. As the Minister will be aware from what has happened in his home country, the companies have picked the easy to reach areas. This impairs the rest of the process and I contend that it was not necessary to allow them to do this. The issue did not arise until Eir informed the Minister and his officials that it was willing to wire up certain areas because these were easy to reach and the process could be completed commercially.

While I welcome any house or business that gets it, the problem is it impairs the process for the other 540 premises that are not getting it. Based on the figures, the Minister has stated that by the end of the year, one fifth of households and premises will be without a service but four fifths will be wired up. If that statement is true, that means there are almost 3 million premises and households in the State. There are not. Within the intervention area, 542,000 households and premises remain to be done. That process will not be started by the end of the year. One would have to be well into that process to have 80% completed.