Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With respect, they are in place and are appointed by the company. I asked this at the private meeting in the Department the other day. They are appointed by the consortium. If they are appointed by the consortium, they are there to represent the interests of the consortium. If I was part of the consortium and I put eight representatives on the board, I would be clear about who they were representing and to whom they were reporting back. The entity, National Broadband Ireland, is flawed because of that. I get no pleasure in pointing this out to the Department officials. The structure is flawed from the point of view of the taxpayer, the State and protecting the interests of the taxpayer. With representatives allocated eight and one, the balance of power on the board is overwhelmingly weighted in favour of the investor.

I want to move on to discuss the risk to the taxpayer. The Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform described the risk as a leap of faith. Mr. Brendan Ellison, principal officer, strongly recommended against it. We have seen that in the documents released. The Department called into question the financial and technical ability to deliver the project.

Deputy Dooley referred back to where it started but it actually started long before that, because Enet was the company in the bidding. Then, Granahan McCourt entered. We have seen all the changes since. SSE pulled out. John Laing pulled out. All of the others who were part of that consortium have pulled out. Now we hear that there is another investor. This morning, the Taoiseach said a total of €175 million is being put up by Tetrad. Is that written into the contract? Has that money being lodged into an account? Is it simply an A4 sheet of paper? Is it simply a letter of comfort from an entity called Tetrad to say that it will commit a given amount to the project? Can the Department officials clarify that? The Taoiseach mentioned that letter.