Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It was not a new approach. Eir had made the approach on previous occasions. As the Minister said, it was public in terms of Deputy Ó Cuív and others. In the correspondence, the Minister says that it was not a political decision but a commercial decision. He said that he could not interfere under state aid rules and had to just accept it. The state aid rules argument falls apart because he is saying that he cannot subsidise what would be a commercial venture but by taking out those 300,000 we have now clearly seen, with the loss of the two bidders, that it is not a commercial proposition. It could not be argued under state aid rules that including those was an unwarranted subsidy because the commercial case for this is now clear. I do not know if it said it publicly but it is common knowledge that the reason the ESB pulled out is that once those 300,000 premises went, the commercial case vanished. Therefore, it was not a European Union state aid rules reason and it was not a commercial reason but a political decision to take out those 300,000 houses. Previously it had been refused and the Minister changed the political response by saying it would be allowed. To say to us that it was great because we got a promise that they would be delivered or that there would be commitments around it is not really the issue because it appears as though withdrawing those 300,000 houses from the scheme has undermined it. Therefore, when did Eir first approach the Department looking to take out the 300,000? What was the Department's response and what changed last April to allow it happen?

The scheme was designed so that we would have two awards with two different contract areas. What was the reasoning for that? While this would mean there would be competitive tenders and difficult technologies and solutions might be tried, I presume one of the main reasons is that it would allow performance to be tested. It would be a useful way of testing performance. How will we now test performance? Eir will still be providing all the poles on which enet's fibre will hang. How will we know whether the delivery is up to speed? We cannot look at upstate New York or Germany or wherever else the Minister mentioned because the Irish countryside is different to New York's. How are we to know? How will we have a control on Eir? It might say that the poles are fine and no investment is needed in new poles. How is anyone to know? What performance test do we have if we do not have two separate roll-outs as originally designed?

Will the Minister explain the agreement where Eir gets €20 a pole? Is that for 25 years? Is it index linked? Did that influence its decision to pull out?

It got its money, a guaranteed cheque of €40 million or €50 million per year. When was that agreed?