Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The process is subject to certain ground rules that were not met in this case.

The Minister made a statement in the Dáil this week that his only motivation was to keep the remaining bidder and I can understand that situation. I am on the record of the Dáil as saying to him that he became a prisoner of the process. Yet we have three meetings and telephone calls where there were no minutes kept and no officials present. We must rely on the word of the former Minister and the kingpin for the one remaining bidder. We are accepting their word for it.

Mr. Smyth is a civil servant and is not a legal officer. He was not looking at this from the point of view of a legal challenge. I have the four points of reference here. He looked at from the point of view of commercial sensitivity and whether information may have been imparted and so on. I contend that the process has not been looked at in terms of whether it has been left open to being legally challenged by somebody in the future because it has been stated that many meetings took place without the presence of officials and without a record being kept. What was discussed? We have heard the explanations but neither Deputy Naughten nor David McCourt have confirmed what happened in writing for Mr. Smyth. We also do not have third party validation of what happened. That surely leaves the State open to a legal challenge in the future. Yesterday, the Minister said that his only motivation was to keep the remaining bidder in the process yet Mr. Smyth has said that on three occasions, where no one else was present and no record was kept of the meetings, the national broadband plan was not discussed. Does Mr. Smyth find that claim to be incredible?

The national broadband plan, NBP, was not discussed. Is that not incredible?