Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 28 March 2019

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Mr. Mark Griffin:

We paid €1.2 million per annum for the phase 2 MANs. If the Deputy looks at the list of MANs, there are some that are more commercial. I think we have circulated the list previously to the Committee of Public Accounts secretariat. I have a copy, myself. The MANs were broken into phase 1 and phase 2. Phase 1 covers more commercial areas where it was more likely that the MSE would be in a position to commercialise the business on the phase 1 MANs. The phase 2 MANs, which were a further 60, were in areas that were deemed to be far less commercial. For example - I will put my hands on the list in a minute - one of the last MANs on the phase 2 list was lit recently and that was in Knock. It kind of gives the Deputy an idea of the scale of location being dealt with in phase 2. There was a payment made for phase 2 of €1.2 million per annum.