Ms Katherine Licken:

Fergal Mulligan and I will reply to the questions. Regarding state aid, the EU does not approve the money for us. State aid is about the approval to do what one wishes to do. The money is either Exchequer funding or other funding. While there might be an EU element in it, the Commission is not concerned with giving us the money but with ensuring that whatever money the State spends is spent correctly and that we do not put people out of business, for example, if Eircom is providing next generation broadband in an area, that we do not encroach on that area where it is not necessary. That is the purpose.

We have a well-worn path to the European Commission regarding state aid. We have been through it several times. We are confident in this programme. We are confident we will get the approval next year and that it will happen in parallel with the planning for the intervention and will not slow it down.

There are more than 60 operators. Some are small and some are very large. Some of them operate in both Northern Ireland and Ireland. There are provisions to allow infrastructure sharing and to mandate it in terms of State intervention. Obviously, we cannot force infrastructure sharing on private operators elsewhere, but we have found that it is happening increasingly in the market. In the mobile market, for example, they are beginning to share masts instead of having four different types of infrastructure in place.