Mr. Mark Griffin:

We think the comparison that needs to be made is between what Eir has characterised as its mid-case scenario costed at €1.55 billion and the NBI mid-case scenario costed at €2.1 billion. There is a difference of approximately €600 million, a sum that is not to be sniffed at. To briefly take a step back, we have not bashed Eir. In fact, we have worked very closely with it on the 300,000 premises area and have a very good relationship at official level with its CEO and staff, with whom we are in regular contact on a range of issues, including its proposals to roll out the fibre network to 1.4 million premises in urban areas. That is an important point which I will ask Mr. Mulligan to address further. We may try to tighten the long presentation we made at the start because we need to be able to point out to the committee the key differences between rolling out a network in a manner similar to that used in the 300,000 premises area and rolling out a network of the nature and with the controls required for the national broadband plan and why they are so important.