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:

If one looks at some of the statistics, some of this will be new build, some will be rental from Eir. I do not think I am breaching any confidences in saying we are talking here about approximately 14,000 km of duct being used and approximately 1.2 million poles. That gives one an idea of the scale of the roll-out. On the maps we circulated with the briefing to the committee, when one looks at the areas we are trying to get to, most if not all are remote and not being served by the commercial sector. There are no plans to have them served by the commercial sector. We will reuse very substantial chunks of existing infrastructure and there will be new build by the bidder also.