Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was incumbent on whoever had responsibility to categorically state it in response rather than leaving it hang. It was left to hang and has been added now by virtue of a figure being put on it, in addition to the fact that the 300,000 premises are now more or less dealt with. There is much more information and knowledge on how the project can be delivered. That also comes into play. Many are alarmed about this and want these hearings to get to the root of it. In that context, I have heard that a letter came from Eir in 2018 further to a meeting that had only taken place a couple of days earlier, to which Mr. Griffin alluded, rightly so, but the response from the then Minister was not adequate to refute the suggestion and contention made in the letter about it being done at a fraction of the cost. The Department needed to state at the time that the Government was not backing down for anybody, that it was proceeding, carrying on and sticking to the process it had put in place, irrespective of the fact that there might only be one bidder left or that it still believed the project could be delivered within seven or eight years. We are now at a juncture where if the Government sit downs to reconsider the matter, it will involve another period of years in procurement. That baffles people. What they cannot get their heads around and what I am trying to get my head around is that an entity, with vast experience and expertise and which has much of the infrastructure in place, has stated it will give us something for €1 billion, while somebody else, about whom I know nothing, is putting up €200 million and exposing the State to a figure of €2.9 billion and saying he can do the same thing at a cost of €3 billion to us. It is very hard to square that circle, especially when representatives of the Government tell us that every road was travelled down in order to be sure that every possible way in which it could be done was investigated before they arrived at a conclusion.