Mr. Ciarán Ó hÓbáin:

On the last point, we would see the contract as being similar to very strong regulation because it stipulates in great detail what has to be done and how the network will be managed going forward, and the provisions around people being connected to it, timescales and quality of service. It is written in a way to give the State confidence that the citizens of rural Ireland who will be depending on this network will have a quality high-speed broadband service into the future, that it will be comparable to the type of service that will be available in any other part of Ireland, especially in major urban areas and that the level of service in terms of how quickly they get connected, downtime and other such issues would be similar also. It is written in a very heavy-handed way because this party effectively will be operating for many years, or potentially forever, the only high-speed broadband network for many of the areas.