Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I just find the Minister's rationale for going ahead with this process very difficult to follow. If I hear him rightly, he is sort of acknowledging that the privatisation of Eircom has landed us in this situation and that the fact that much of the broadband network is already privatised means that even though we are not in a good situation, we must now continue with the privatisation process because it would not make sense to have one part public and one part private. He also seems to be saying this would minimise the risk for the State. This is a very peculiar logic that does not really stand up. First, do we not carry all the risk regardless? This consortium could unravel or fall apart, the people involved might just decide they will not make enough money out of this or there might not be enough take-up, and we will end up holding the baby. The only risk the consortium is taking on is the €175 million, so we are in any event taking all the risk, and all the upside is for the consortium. We pay €3 billion; it pays €200 million. If things go well, it owns the asset; if things go badly, we hold the baby. Why on earth would we not use our investment to guarantee that we have the asset at the end of this? It would not really be a risk for us in that sense if we did it that way because we need the thing. It is only a risk because these people are in it for money. If the consortium cannot make money, its investment could fall apart. Is it not also, by the way, very unusual that the consortium that has been given this is not even the original consortium? It is evidence before our eyes that the original Granahan McCourt consortium was different, involving different people, who then pulled out, and that this consortium could also unravel. I just cannot see the logic of persisting with this. The Minister's own Secretary General is saying precisely all this. I just find it rather bizarre.

My other question concerns the National Broadband Ireland board. The Minister says there will be someone be on the board to look after the public interest, but did we not have this with the national children's hospital board? There was supposed to be someone on that board looking after the public interest and they did not because the collegiality and confidentiality of the board trumped their accountability to the Government, the Department and so on. What reason do we have for believing that exactly the same thing will not happen again?