Ms Carolan Lennon:

A couple of elements. I would remove the 40,000 premises in rural areas that we have already handled. That would save €40 million. I would not focus on the urban infills. Commercially, they will be delivered over time. Some of them have probably been delivered already. As part of our national build, we will pick some of them up. I would focus on the rural homes that are left. If we narrowed the process down in that way, it would be more achievable in the timeline in question. I see no need for a rural SLA that is better than the national SLA. It is inefficient and I do not know anyone running a network who would recommend it. I see no reason to have a smaller connection charge in the intervention footprint than in the roll-out to the 300,000 premises or the rest of the country.

I see no reason for the bidder not to use the passive product to get to the target of 300,000 premises. If all of those changes were made, a decent amount of money would be saved and the people receiving the service would not really be any worse off than they are.