Mr. Fergal Mulligan:

To answer the question on whether people will obtain a broadband service, approximately 500,000 premises had broadband in 2013. By the end of this year, that figure will have increased to 1.8 million. The momentum on the delivery of broadband is significant and we will ensure it is maintained and accelerated. That is our prerogative. There is no question that we will get 100% of the country covered. In terms of timelines, the question is when this will be achieved. By the end of this year, we will have a detailed timeline from the consortium for when it will be able to achieve this. We will not know what the timeline will be until then because we are working through the detail. As I indicated, part of the detail is that the Department will apply as much pressure as possible to ensure the process is concluded as quickly as possible. With the competitive dialogue process we are running, we can engage with the consortium to identify what can be done to have the process completed quicker before we get a final tender.

In terms of the ability of Enet to do this, one fundamental point is that one must qualify to be included in a tender process. In 2016, five consortiums applied to be part of our tender process and three consortiums, including Enet, qualified. The company went through a very robust qualification process which demonstrated that it had the experience, understanding and projects to prove it could do a large-scale project. We have no doubt it can do it.