Mr. T.J. Malone:

It is from the point of view that we know where we are in the cycle with all of these issues. Almost 38,000 are completed and built at this stage. As I said, anywhere between 85% and 98% of the remaining 25,000 are done and we are finishing off the bits and pieces. When we spoke to committee members on site in October, we had 108,000 under construction. We now have 154,000 under construction. That is growing all the time. By the end of this year we will have 225,000 under construction, which is 40% of the entire base for the national broadband plan. We are 20% ahead on the survey at the moment and we are 10% ahead on the design. By the end of this year we will have 70% of the survey and design for the entire State completed.

Yes, we have encountered issues, not just with Covid pandemic but also on the ground. On any project of this scale, the first 12 months are on-the-ground building, which is pretty much what we have done. We have encountered a lot of those problems to the point where we have even had to go back and redesign some of the works that had already been designed to take into account the lessons we have learned over the first 12 months. We are confident we are in the final throes of those 60,000 that are coming through the pipeline at the moment and which will be completed and built by the end of March.