Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are huge concerns. Some of the reasons given include blocked ducts. For example, when they go out and push cables through ducts, they find they are blocked. One would expect that to happen if ducts are unused. There are issues related to Covid and how that was stretched and stretched, perhaps further than it should have been. It is the first time I have seen committed to paper that the Department has conceded there should not be a 12- or 13-month delay but a delay of eight and a half months. It uses wording around that and states that penalties should apply in this case. I said this to the Taoiseach yesterday and today I am asking the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to ensure that happens.

The national broadband plan is a very precarious and complex project. A lot could go wrong but one hopes it does not go wrong. Does Mr. Moloney’s Department stand over the concerns expressed in his Department's letter of 16 April 2019 to the Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications in which his Department questioned the affordability of the project and expressed fundamental concerns in relation to the unprecedented risk to the State and taxpayer? The letter referred to the project as a huge leap of faith, questioned the justification for spending scarce public funding on this scale and noted the unprecedented risk involved given that the Exchequer was committing €2.7 billion to the project, whereas the only risk for the operator was €175 million of its own funds. It also noted that the private operator would have all its moneys paid back at the point where the Exchequer had €2.5 billion paid out. The Department also said it was difficult to see how the contract represented value for money.

Does the Department still share all of those concerns?