Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The ESB network is in very good condition in terms of its pole structures and ducting. One can see when one drives around the country that a lot of Eir's poles are falling over into ditches and there has been very little investment in the basic infrastructure since it was privatised in 1999. First, Eir has got the 300,000 easiest to reach and most profitable households that banjaxed this process, which I will discuss in a minute. Second, Eir needed an investment and a subsidy to modernise and repair its poles and ducting network in every county throughout the State. Eir now has it in the form of the €0.9 billion or €1 billion that it will get over the next 25 years, so well done to Eir.

Thanks must go to the taxpayers for the contingency fund, and I am sure they will be happy with it. In terms of the contingency, the Department's position was pointed out in the opening statement. In 2018 and 2019, the Department produced two contingency reports and outlined alternative models. At what point or date was a decision taken to produce the contingency reports? Why did the Department feel the need at that point, in 2018 and 2019, to produce the reports? I ask because the decision by the Government to go with the gap funding model was made in 2016, yet there was no contingency report or, seemingly, no sense until two and three years later that there was a need to draft contingency reports. Was it only in 2017 that the Government realised that the project was in a more precarious state following Eir taking away the 300,000 easiest to reach and most commercially lucrative households? Is that the reason for the timing? Is that the reason contingency reports were drawn up in 2018 and 2019? As someone looking in from the outside, it seems that was all we could do at that point and we had to figure out what was going on behind the scenes. It looked to me, which I said to the Minister publicly in the Chamber and privately outside the Chamber, that the whole process at that point was fatally undermined and banjaxed.