Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

As I have many questions this morning, I would like fairly short replies. The area on which I want to focus is broadband.

There can be some confusion because there are a number of different contracts. The metropolitan area networks, MANs, which were established in 2004, were purchased by Granahan McCourt Capital in 2013. There were two concessionary contracts. One was to run to 2019 and the other was to run to 2024. In 2017 it was decided to extend those contracts to 2030. Obviously, they were not going to run out imminently so it was not necessary to do that in 2017, but it was done in March 2017. In July 2017 the Irish Infrastructure Fund bought 78% of Enet. That is one of the areas I wish to explore. First, who was the decision maker who decided to extend the contracts?