Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I understand that, but even where the grant aid is provided, there is an under-estimation of the actual cost of doing it. The example highlighted by the local authority is a case in point but other people are saying that as well. I have been contacted by people who have told me the amount of money they have to put to it is unattainable. We will end up not being able to deliver on a very important national programme.

I refer to appendix 1 in the context of the national broadband plan advisory services. It gives a breakdown of the total expenditure in respect of some of the providers. Analysys Mason is described there as technical in terms of the advisory. The Analysys Mason report related to the costings. I did not think it was technical. It was about the charging mechanism. I am not sure whether the nature of the advisory services is immediately obvious there. It would be quite useful to get a further breakdown in respect of some of them, such as Analysys Mason and KPMG. I continuously question whether there is capacity to do in-house some of the things that go out to tender to consultancy firms or we should be building the capacity to do that in-house as opposed to the expensive outsourcing. I know the national broadband plan was a one-off so it may not be a great example, but I would like to see a breakdown on both of those providers to ascertain exactly what the work they did was.