Mr. Ciarán Ó hÓbáin:

There were a number of questions and I will ask both my colleagues, Mr. Fergal Mulligan and Mr. Patrick Neary, to come in on aspects of them.

First, to clarify, on the issue of the contract, it is on the basis of a seven-year build programme. That is a seven-year contract that we are two years into. There are five years to the end of that contract. NBI said before the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications in September that it would deliver the full contract, notwithstanding that it is behind today, inside that seven years. The ambition remains higher than that and we will get deeper into that in respect of some of the questions that the Deputy has asked, particularly around locking down numbers for 2022 and beyond. Clearly again on that, there is an exercise that is to happen in the coming weeks, which will be around locking numbers down for 2022 and looking further forward.

We will come back later to a wider question around providing the maximum information that can be provided. NBI provides this information to the public in the intervention areas in order that people have the maximum clarity and yet the challenge of doing that is that as one moves through the build programme, one is never able to give 100% certainty today. Should I give 98% or 97% certainty today or should I give nothing until I am sure? I favour giving the person the best I can but telling them that it may change. We will come back to that point later.

On the roll-out programme, the future projection and the roll-out to islands, perhaps I might ask Mr. Neary to come in on that point in the first instance. I will deal quickly with the costs issue and then Mr. Mulligan might expand on this on how clawback works and on dealing with the penalties issue.

The cost of the programme is made up of a base subsidy of €2.1 billion and €480 million of contingency subsidy, plus VAT. It is very early in the build but the indications are not just that it will come in under subsidy but that our target from the outset would be to keep as close to the €2.1 billion base subsidy as possible. The potential benefit back to the State of a high take-up flows in two ways. One is that it means that the project and the business model works and continues to work.

Mr. Mulligan can then explain to the joint committee how it works where there is a clawback to the State. There is a different clawback to the State where the project is going well because the capital costs are kept under control and are lower than was in the tender and there is an immediate impact of that. There is a more long-term impact if it is that the project is a success over the life of the project.

I will ask Mr. Neary to come in first on the network roll-out and Mr. Mulligan can then pick up on clawback and the penalties.