Mr. Fergal Mulligan:

I could come up with 40, but there are just six important ones.

We also believe it is important to give an incentive to the private sector to run this business as efficiently as possible, to be the one dealing face to face with Eircom, Enet and the 40 subcontractors they will have to employ. No matter what model one chooses, one will have to have one’s infrastructure provider, builders of the network and an operating company. We chose a design, build, manage and operate model. We still believe the most efficient way to run it is through an integrated model where the operating company is working with the building company. It is better that they are working together, as opposed to having two contracts, with two separate companies that could be pulling and tugging at each other for the next 25 years. Again, that was a critical point. One is creating an incentive for these guys to be efficient because they will want to maximise profits. We hope they will because then the project will be successful, the policy objective will have been achieved and we will have a 60% clawback. They are our objectives and we hope the private sector has the same ones.

We believe it does protect the public interest because we have protections in place on the three factors of passing, connecting and renting infrastructure whereby the public purse will be protected. With the governance process in place, effective regulation by ComReg and the other measures we have in place in the contract in terms of accounting and oversight, we believe it is achievable in the short term. It does not require us to start a new process and kick the can down the road for another two or three years before it starts. That is not a key determinant, but it is an important factor in that everyone wants this to happen quickly. We believe this model does that but in an appropriate fashion. We are not doing it just because it works and we have two or three years to wait. It works because of what I have outlined. We believe it brings in an appropriate allocation of risk. It is said there is no risk on the private sector side. It has a mammoth task to build a network in the next seven years. It will have to set up the project management office and manage the make-ready programme with Eircom. It has been with the latter for the past year and a half, with a good process set up, with Eircom engineers with 30 years' experience working together. All of the people and systems are in place. The private company will take the risk that Eircom will go slower or that demand on the network will not arise as quickly as it thought it would. It is also taking the risk of operating the company from year ten to year 25 and up to year 35. There is an allocation of risk in a context where it really needs to make this work.