Mr. Mark Griffin:

The letter from Eir stated that the €10 million cost for annual oversight was a big deterrent for it. However, we did not mention a €10 million annual oversight cost until we published the suite of documents when we moved to a preferred bidder. That is not an additional cost. The purpose of the oversight arrangements we put in, whether they cost €5 million or €10 million, with a mixture of Departmental staff and some external advisers, is to drive down the cost. It is not €3 billion, which would be the figure at the outer extreme, plus €250 million. That funding would be met within the overall provision for the national broadband plan and the only purpose of that oversight and governance unit within the Department is to drive down cost. It will ensure that we are all over the procurement process in terms of subcontractors, fibre, who is managing the claw-back, the most efficient design and so on. That is its purpose and if that is in place, savings are achieved, but if it is not in place, they are not achieved.