Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I will talk about the model that we use and will then bring in the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, who has chaired the mobile and broadband task force. The model we decided to go for was a competitive tender to seek to achieve universal access and we were open-minded as to what technology would deliver that and how it could best be done. Interestingly, all three tenders proposed a fibre solution. That is why fibre has become the winner of this process. There was no alternative approach. It has proved to be the most cost-effective way of achieving that goal. What the Oireachtas wants and I believe to be necessary is that every home will have access to a technology that is future proofed. Mixing and matching, hoping over time that it will work out was not the approach we adopted. The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, has done a lot of work on precisely those issues, as to how the practical obstacles can be removed, and perhaps he might deal with that.