Mr. Conal Henry:

There was, yes. In particular, there was a large uptake in Donegal town.

We were not involved in choosing the towns. We applied to be the metropolitan area network operator after the networks were built. The decisions on how and where to build them were made by the Department in consultation with each local authority. At no point were we involved in this. We could have added value to it but from a procurement point of view it would have been difficult to bring us in without having a fair procurement for the second phase of the towns.

With regard to the question on the most successful MANs, it depends on how one defines success. Revenue per MAN largely tracks population so Cork is the biggest. There are outliers which overperform and underperform. Letterkenny is very strong relative to its population whereas Waterford is quite weak relative to its population. We believe this is because of the nature of the industrial bases there. Letterkenny is more technologically based with call centres whereas Waterford has a more industrial base, although this is purely a guess. In smaller areas, Manorhamilton and Carrick-on-Shannon in Leitrim do very well and there are many jobs there. In Mayo, Ballina is strong while Kiltimagh and Claremorris are getting strong. It is a very interesting picture and I would not say we have developed any science in understanding exactly what happens where, other than that it largely tracks population.