Professor Eoin Reeves:

That does not appear to have been the assumption of the Department at any stage, but I would imagine, and the point I made in my opening statement is that this would have happened once we got down to one bidder. For me this is a suspicion, because we do not have full facts. When one is down to one bidder, then the bidder is in a very strong position and can say that it will not go with the original plan, which is to use the poles and ducts, and that it will overlay its own cable. There is an advantage to doing that, because the subsidy is based on the capital expenditure. The company gets a bigger subsidy and builds a much higher quality network for itself. We do not know what will happen down the line, but Granahan McCourt will be able to exploit that value for a longer period. This is the problem with having a procurement with no competition.