Dr. Dónal Palcic:

On the additional cost of rolling out their own fibre, we are dealing with heavily redacted documents and that is all that we can effectively analyse. We have no idea what the additional cost will be given that it is always redacted but it is clear that it is much higher than the Department's budget model, which assumed that it would be renting Eir's wholesale fibre product. If one reads through Analysys Mason's technical assessment report and KPMG's single bidder solution assessment report from 2018, they highlight many other areas where there is an increased cost as a result of a redesigned network and redesigned solution being put forward by Granahan McCourt. There is obviously a substantial additional cost and the extra fibre that will have to be laid will increase the timeframe. That is partly why we have gone from a five year to a seven year roll-out. There are other issues relating to the technology that has been chosen. It is using next generation technology for optical equipment, which is different from what the Department had assumed would be the case, whereby the current technology would be refreshed in five to seven years as the industry evolves.