Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentation. I will follow on from Deputy Dooley's questions. Mr. Mulligan referred to value for money. Deputy Dooley was correct in saying that there is only one bidder in the process now so what are the actual risks to the State in respect, first, of value for money and, second, for the entire project if it goes belly-up? In terms of the intervention areas, if this plan, which we will call plan B, fails, in my area of Cork alone there will be more than 74,000 premises, which could possibly involve 200,000 individuals, that might not get any broadband. That is very worrying.

Has a public ownership model, based on existing State infrastructure, such as that owned by the ESB, been considered? I recently met the Chamber of Commerce in Cork and a number of stakeholders to discuss the Celtic interconnector. They spoke about utilising existing State infrastructure. We are talking about very complex operations and bids.

I looked at the metropolitan area networks, MANs, in my area in Cork and in Midleton, Cobh, Cork city, Ballincollig and as far away as Youghal and the points seemed to be there. If deflectors were used, could we not utilise them and tap into the national network? Surely 99% of people have electricity in their homes? Reference was also made to data and tracking in terms of Eircodes and addresses. If 99% of people have an electricity connection and each person gets a bill, we already have the data and the mapping done. I am a bit lost in that regard and would welcome some clarification from the witnesses.