Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 28 March 2019

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Mr. Mark Griffin:

That is being fleshed out as part of the dialogue process. A lot of the assessment around the level of subsidy required is based on projections really around demand and revenue. Different views emerged on that at different stages, as Mr. Mulligan has indicated. If there is a more benign outcome on the level of demand and level of revenue than the bidder had anticipated then there are clawback mechanisms built into the project to allow some of that come back to the State. We know at this point what the level of subsidy is likely to look like. We have set out or we have available in our own material and assessment of what the optimistic scenario is, what the central scenario is and what the more pessimistic scenario is. So we know then, taking account of each of those scenarios, what the level of subsidy requirement from the State will be. If it turns out to be the more central or more optimistic scenario, well then mechanisms arise within the contract to allow us to recoup costs and to ensure that the subsidy levels are driven down.

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