Mr. Mark Griffin:

I will let Mr. Mulligan deal with the connection issues. When we look at procurement processes, it is not unusual for certain projects to find oneself in a situation where one only has a single bidder at the end. If we look at the equivalent of the UK in terms of its national broadband plan, it received only one bid at the end. It was from BT, the final company that was participating in the process. Fujitsu pulled out before submitting a final bid. It is not unusual and it is not ideal. We will be perfectly upfront on that.

Going back to the value for money point, we have used a competitive dialogue process which allows us do a helicopter move and circle in and reiterate as more evidence becomes available. We have done significant market engagement. We have interrogated various proposals from the three bidders. It has allowed us deepen our understanding of likely subsidy levels, technology, construction operation costs and demand revenue projections.

The other important point to bear in mind, and this is very useful to us from a comparison perspective, is that at the penultimate stage before receipt of final bids and before Eir withdrew from the proposal, which is known as the invitation, submit, detailed submissions, ISDS, stage, we had two bidders submit proposals which included their financial estimates of the cost of the project. That was very helpful to us in terms of the comparisons to be made.

We have got modelling expertise from ComReg. We have looked at international models. We have got a separate report from KPMG which looks at how to engage, based on national and international best practice, and value for money in the context of a single bidder assessment. That will form part of the valuation that will be submitted to Government.

The other point-----