Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 10 February 2022
Public Accounts Committee
2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
National Broadband Plan Expenditure and Related Matters
9:30 am
Mr. Peter Hendrick:
I might outline what our subsidy is paying for. It is about the building of the network. Up to the end of December, we had received €177 million in subsidy. We can only claim that subsidy on achievement of milestones. When we achieve those milestones, that gets referenced against specific permitted expenditure. The permitted expenditure needs to have been audited and verified. All the invoices, largely to do with our build contractors' materials we are buying and infrastructure that we are building out, making ready or repairing, are assessed and verified by our own financial team. Our internal auditors do an assessment of that, as do our external auditors. Equally, the Department has its own advisers, EY, who assess all those invoices. When all of that is done and all the verification on the permitted expenditure is done, when we have achieved a milestone, there is an independent certifier that certifies we have achieved the milestone and all the permitted expenditure is signed off and applicable to the subsidies we receive. There is quite a diligent independent assurance process around all our subsidy receipts.
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