Mr. Ciarán Ó hÓbáin:

To go back to my first comment, we could discuss the ownership issue for the entire afternoon. It comes back to the ownership issue because the ownership issue sends one to that place. If it is gap-funded, it stays with the bidder. When one looks to the engagement between the two Departments, what one sees is questions being asked about the risks to the project and about the potential for a significant downside. The engagement is also saying that there are risks in the project if there is a significant upside. The discourse is appropriate in the sense that people are looking at the entire spectrum of issues.

The Deputy has asked about the asset and the value of the business. The asset is the physical infrastructure that is in place. The Deputy also asked a question last week about the science and research around the durability of fibre, to which he has not received an answer yet. We will explore that further but there is no question but that after 25 years or even 35 years, given the potential for a ten-year extension of the contract, we are in the space of renewing infrastructure. There is a cost there for somebody, either the private entity that holds it, as per the gap-funded model or the State. The Minister's response to parliamentary questions yesterday was helpful. Deputy Dooley spoke about doing the maths in terms of 400,000 people paying €30 per month. In that context, by the time we get to year 25, we could be talking about a turnover of €150 million. Who knows what pole prices will be by then but even using today's figures, one could be talking about €40 million or €50 million for pole rental. Let us say the company has 150 employees, it has poles that will need to be replaced following storms, equipment that will need to be upgraded and so on. There is not a likelihood of very high profitability in this business at year 25. This all relates to the ownership issue in the context of the gap-funded model, so I will not go on at length. In terms of the pros and cons, it really depends on what happens at year 25. If this business is very profitable, one would like to have it. If it could pay its way in terms of any reinvestment, one would like to have it. However, if it is the case that at year 20, the profitability was such that it required a significant judgment as to whether it was worth reinvesting and this was to come back to the State, the risk for the State would be that the private investor would not reinvest further and would not be incentivised to do so because it would not own it. It is caught up in that but we must keep sight of the fact that the value of the business at year 25 is likely to be relatively low because the potential profitability is very low at that point, post deployment. There is a risk up to the point of deployment but post deployment and post people coming on board, what we have is a regulated utility that is limited to selling wholesale services.