Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a quick question on the 300,000 households or premises area. On the day of the press conference, a map was handed out and it was very clear to me what would happen. I could identify areas in my constituency, which I know best, where there were clusters of houses and quite a high density of housing for what are rural areas. Other more-difficult-to-reach premises were out the road, up boreens and were more scattered. Mr. Kidney has referred to the difficulties in reaching them. We are talking now about having to roll out parallel fibre cables on existing poles or through ducting in the area that Eir now has, which is now covering approximately 340,000 households. It is my understanding from what the witnesses said that the original intention was that the developer would splice into that or would use the telecommunications network that is there already. To be clear, Eir, got that area and took it over. The developer is left with between 480,000 and 500,000 households. Dr. Yardley seems to be suggesting that the developer working on the area with 500,000 premises must overlay fibre cable because Eir has stated that it has the area with 300,000 premises and if the developer wants to pass that area, it must install its own system and fibre cables alongside those installed by Eir. In other words, the developer cannot use the Eir equipment. That is one point that I want the witnesses to clarify.