Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

So that is €70 more. Secondly, Eir is bringing it through wire. I know that and, if a person brings it by duct to where the pole is, is Ms Lennon saying that, under the national broadband plan, there was a clause that it had to be brought to within so many metres of a house, or brought right to the house in every case?

Third, for clarity, if Eir has €200 million in its back pocket, rocks up with the gear and decides to put broadband somewhere, must it go for a licence to get authority or can Eir do it of its own initiative? The reason I ask is that we sat in for 83 or 85 days of Government talks and were told categorically during those talks that Eir would not get the contract it was looking for because it would affect the overall project of the whole national broadband plan and a licence would not be issued. Can Ms Lennon clarify whether we were being misled? If I have the money and the infrastructure, can I decide what part of Ireland I want to go to and provide broadband?

At any stage over the past two years, before Eir came out of the process and when it highlighted the situation about which it was not comfortable, was there any negotiation with the Department? Was the Department willing to change or was it just stuck on this set of rules they had? If the whole scenario changed in the morning, as other Deputies have asked, how quickly could we have the likes of Eir's roll-out system put into place with guarantees of delivery? If the situation at the moment was put on pause and someone sat down with Eir or another provider, how quickly could it be put in place? Would it be another two years, looking at each other and wondering when another announcement would come?

I want to be clear about the following. Is Ms Lennon saying that, under the procurement document on which the Department was working with Eir, the company would have its business on one floor of its building and other people would have to be put up on the next floor as a separate entity, and the entities could not really talk to each other?

That would require extra staff, a new set-up and a new building away from everybody because it was the national broadband plan. While Eir has been rolling out broadband to the 340,000 homes over the past year or 18 months, how much of a problem did it have with councils in terms of licences?

We have a major problem across rural parts of Ireland. Years ago, when Telecom Éireann or the Department of Posts and Telegraphs workers came around an area, people let them put poles along their ditches, fields or whatever. I refer to GAA clubs, people who might be widening a road or somebody building a house. The first problem they face is to get someone from Eir to come out and do the work. The second problem is the prices it is charging at the moment. It is disgusting to see the way people who provided ground years ago before Eir bought the business are being treated. Councils trying to revamp towns might want to widen a bend in a road, remove ESB cables or whatever and it is costing them a phenomenal amount of money. Why has a goodwill gesture not been made to make sure those jobs can be done in communities that are struggling for funding? I ask Ms Lennon, as the CEO of Eir, to consider looking at that, especially in terms of rural areas.

If Eir was to get a contract in the morning - we live in a fantasy world - how long would it take it to roll out broadband to the 540,000 houses being talked about? Also, was Ms Lennon disappointed more with the Minister or the Department when they did not come back to Eir to try to resolve the issues that arose?