Mr. Peter Hendrick:

We did not. The reason for not doing that was largely that the intervention area is not clean. It is not a case of every home outside Dublin or an urban area being in the intervention area. There are premises throughout the country involved. Urban areas, such as some near here, including places in Clontarf, Dollymount, the airport or Dublin Port are in the intervention area. They are extreme cases. Even if we were to plug in, we still have to go back in to connect homes. Coming out from areas where we have existing backhaul fibre, we are still passing premises in the intervention area. That was a critical part of our assessment. Beyond that, we looked at operational integration issues, including the matter of operating this network over 25 years. It is a passive cable down which we send light. We have to keep records of the length of the cable and of any breaks or resplicing. We have to know that the light and connection on that cable will work over 25 years. Future-proofing is a concern. There are great operational challenges involved in interfacing with two passive networks as an access network. Finally, there is the cost of renting that infrastructure compared with the cost of building one's own infrastructure and there was a significant delta in that. We did not just say that we wanted to build our own network. There were three sides to the evaluation.

There might be some value in looking at adjacent infill. We engaged with Eir about that. It is not a product that it made available. We are looking at that, with the regulator, to see if there is value and the quantum of premises whereby it would made sense for Eir to offer as a passive product. We would not be plugging into all its fibre network, it would only happen in specific scenarios where we see the merit of it.