Dr. Stjohn O'Connor:

The Senator has raised a good question. Kildare is probably one of the counties with the fewest BCPs. It only has three BCPs, all of which are connected and live at this point. Our focus is on closing off the BCP discovery process because we have been through at least two, if not three, iterations of BCP discovery with the local authorities. Our intention is to, hopefully, close out that build phase by the end of the year. That is what we are all collectively working towards.

We see that we have the connected hubs call, which comes in behind all of these facilities. One of the things we are looking at in the context of next year is opening up the BCP network to new BCPs. We will not necessarily provide people with connectivity, but we will give them a means of getting it. They can take the benefit of being part of the BCP network and can have access to all those services we will run through it, but they will be also able to draw down funding via the connected hubs call. In the first instance, therefore, if communities are interested in joining the BCP network they should approach the broadband officer. That is the mechanism by which we would see them coming into the network next year.