Ms Carolan Lennon:

We are talking about two different things. We pulled out of the national broadband plan because the process was not working for us in terms of the complexity, the cost, the overhead and the risk into the rest of our business. As long as that process still exists, we will not be part of that and will focus on our national build. I refer to the question we were asked by the committee. We were asked to comment on the cost of doing this, how long it will take and the ownership, and we have done that. When we pulled out, Mr. Richard Moat wrote to the Minister and told him that we could do this for a fraction of the costs that were talked about at the time but the Department decided to continue with that process because that is the process it wanted to use. That is for the Department to decide. It is not for me to decide. I am only telling the Senator, based on my experience of building in rural Ireland, that if I apply exactly the same rules - I accept that they are not the same rules that are in the NBP process - I can pass and connect those homes for less than €1 billion.