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

I agree with Deputies Dooley and Stanley. Ireland has lost large companies, one after the other, which had decades of experience in putting wires up in the country. The Minister says it is competitive dialogue but there are no competitors. The remaining players have no experience when compared with the ESB, Vodafone, John Laing Group and so on. We are in trouble on this.

What is the role of Enet or the other companies the Minister mentioned in this? Are they being contracted by Mr. McCourt?

Representatives from Eir appeared before the committee a few weeks ago and they clearly indicated that the NBP should be done on the electricity wires. That was strange, because one would think they would generate a lot of money from using their poles, but they could not have been clearer in saying that does not make any sense. Why would there be two sets of poles? They said it would be much better to use the ESB poles because they are connected to every house whereas the telephone poles are not. Eir does not want to continue with the 2 million telephone poles. Does the Minister expect that the electricity wires will be used to get to houses rather than the telephone poles?

What percentage of houses does the Minister think will end up with fibre to the home? What percentage will use another technology? Can the Minister give an indication on that?

Is the cost of €5.5 million so far this year mainly for lawyers and consultants? Is it the case that nothing has physically been spent anywhere and all the money was for advisers to the scheme?

My main question is whether ESB poles will be used. I have nothing against Mr. McCourt or his previous experience but the Minister is taking a big gamble. If something goes wrong with ESB, SSE Airtricity or Vodafone, these companies have 10,000 people to call on in order to resolve the problem. What happens if it goes belly up and the remaining bidders, who do not have that substantive presence in the country, state that it is more difficult than they thought and that they cannot proceed? What recourse would the State have in the context of picking up the pieces? I could see how we might do it with SSE Airtricity or Vodafone because their operations are huge, but it seems that we are involved in a very unusual process.