Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ms Lennon will forgive me if I do not have ultimate confidence in KPMG, particularly when we talk about Carillion and many other organisations.

Last week, the Government's technical advisers on the national broadband plan discussed with this committee the most significant factors behind the State subsidy multiplying from €800 million to €3 billion. They gave two reasons for this. They said the remaining bidder would have no guarantee that it would be able to use Eir's infrastructure in that part of the intervention area and would therefore have to build its own network side by side that of Eir in order to reach the homes that Eir chooses to reject. That would come at a considerable capital cost.

Second, they said the remaining bidder would be prohibited from selling their products to any consumer in Eir's intervention area and therefore the State could not generate any revenue in that area even though it had to build a network through it. What sense would that make to the remaining bidder?