Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I remain unclear as to why a USO is not possible now. Mr. Ó hÓbáin has said that it can only be used at a later stage where the market has already been satisfied. We are proposing to satisfy the requirement by State intervention. Surely a USO comes into play when it is needed due to State intervention. If we were to leave the NBP aside for the moment and we looked again at using the USO model, could that be used to roll out high-speed broadband? Minimum and adequate levels have been mentioned. It should not be forgotten that the national broadband plan, in its initial call, only looked for 30 Mbps, and I am on record as calling that into question. Mr. Griffin mentioned a predominantly fibre solution proposed by Government. To the best of my recollection, it is not fibre proposed by the Government because it has to be technology neutral. It was the three bidders.