Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are now saying that a chunk of the plan in front of us can be done commercially if Eir had the budget. My concern from the Department's point of view, not from Eir's point of view, is how the Department can run a competition on the basis of getting rural broadband to 540,000 houses without contravening state aid rules. There is going to be a subsidy and then, lo and behold, someone says "sure I can do a third of them without any state aid". Given where we are on this contract, I am sure Ms Lennon can understand my line of thought.