Mr. Fergal Mulligan:

This is a commercial contract between us and a commercial company. Every contract, including public private partnership contracts, contracts for road or rail projects or this contract, will include two specific clauses. One is for relief and one is for delay. A relief clause allows companies to apply to the authority, which is us in this case, to say that something beyond the companies' control happened - which may include force majeure, an act of God, a storm or so on - which means they cannot meet the demands of the contract. In certain circumstances, which we have to oversee and review, such companies can seek relief from a penalty under the contract. This relief provision was invoked due to Covid in this particular context. We look at delay based on milestones rather than on months but National Broadband Ireland, NBI, itself said the project was delayed by six months. It attributed the majority of that six-month delay to Covid issues. Throughout the process in March and April of this year, we went through all the reasons it believes it was delayed. Our independent experts reviewed that and came back to us with the opinion that NBI had objectively demonstrated why Covid-related issues had impacted on the build. We gave NBI relief for the majority of the period of the delay. Some of that delay was not related to Covid. That will come into play next year. If the company has not then made up for that lost time on the build, penalties will apply from February of next year. The company is not dodging the penalties. They were always to kick in from February of next year under the contract. They will kick in next year if the company has not made up for lost ground relating to the delay for which relief was not given or in the event of the company being delayed even further, which we do not anticipate happening. The penalties will kick in in those circumstances.