Mr. Peter Smyth:

In a normal tender process, the answer is "Yes" while in a competitive dialogue, it is "No". In a competitive dialogue, I may have a view on what it might cost but the function of a competitive dialogue is that I do not have a particular view on how this will be done. The purpose of the dialogue is to have a discussion with the potential bidders about what it is I am going to buy and then get to the end of the dialogue and say we have discussed the art of the possible, this is what I want to buy, tell me how it will be delivered and how much it will cost. This dialogue process was slightly different because the tenderers all had different start points. Their approaches to doing something were never going to be the same. It was not trying to get to a single model that all bidders would bid against because the only way they could do that was if all bidders were identical. It was trying to get to a stage where all the bidders were putting forward their best proposals against a set of criteria, which had been set out at the very beginning, that they must meet. That set of criteria has never been changed. Everybody is then bidding against that but because of the dialogue it was not starting, knowing exactly what it was it wanted to buy and therefore a cost model could not be done. It was done on the basis of having an idea of what the outcome would look like but in terms of how this was done and delivered I do not have that view of the world. The purpose of the dialogue is to get that view of the world.

Would the end game for anybody tendering for it not be supplying fibre broadband to the 540,000 homes identified by the Department? Is Mr. Smyth telling me that it is like a design, build and operate, DBO, scheme and that whoever will design, build and operate, in whichever way they do it, in the most effective way is a big part of the process?