Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to confirm there is no change to the planning requirements. All the safeguards in terms of safety and basic metrics for road-opening licences will still apply. One of the concerns that had been raised by the County and City Management Association is that there is a duplicate process here in terms of double charging. Second, the intention is to speed up the plan. While it is not guaranteed revenue that local authorities specifically have, if we go on the basic metric in terms of the 18,000 km, we could be talking about approximately €35 million in the coming years. They will take in €225,000 from the basic licence opening fees. We are keen to ensure we support local authorities in the future and we are committed to doing that. It is incumbent on us all to try to speed up the process for the national broadband plan to ensure it gets to as many citizens as quickly as possible. We should do anything we can to support the plan. I thank the Deputy for his questions.