Ms Carolan Lennon:

The difference between the €3 billion I mentioned on Adrian Weckler's podcast and the €1 billion is that the €3 billion would, in our opinion, be the cost of the national broadband plan under the gap-funding model proposed by the Department. I was quite surprised by some of the headlines today because Eir and its former CEO put on record, in the letter which was released on foot of a freedom of information request, that we could have delivered the national broadband plan for a fraction of the cost. That letter was issued in January 2018. The cost of €1 billion would be achieved by building that fibre network on the same basis as the network we have almost completed for the 340,000.

As for what I mean by that, we would use the fibre and the connection points in place for the 300,000. We would not be overbuilding. When we designed the network for the 300,000 we were still an active bidder for the NBP. As we were hoping to win it, we spent extra on the build for the 300,000 in order that the network could be rolled out into the intervention footprint. We would use our own poles and ducts. We own them so we would use them. We would use our own access network team and our contractors to build and plan the network. We would use our own wholesale team to sell it. We would apply the same connection charge in the intervention area as we have applied for the other 300,000. The connection cost would be the same as it is in the rest of the country. We would apply the same service level agreement, SLA, and regulated pricing in the intervention area as we do in the rest of the country.

We are just about to finish rolling out broadband to 340,000 homes in rural Ireland. We are the only people who have done that and the only people who have that experience. Based on that experience, we are certain that we could roll out fibre to the rural homes within the intervention footprint for less than €1 billion. That is the model we use, but that is not the NBP model. The NBP model is a gap-funding model that requires a separate wholesale division, a better SLA than applies in the rest of the country, differentiated pricing, and cheaper connection charges. All of these requirements and the additional complexity drive up the costs.

I was asked why we decided to pull out the last time I was before the committee. In the end, we decided to pull out because we could not make a commercial case to continue in light of all those costs. The big factor for Eir is that whatever is going to happen in respect of pricing, connection charges and so on for that 20% will affect pricing for the other 80% of our business because we are regulated and not allowed to differentiate pricing for different parts of the country. That was a massive risk for us and was another factor in our decision. This is being treated like new news but it is not. Anyone looking at Mr. Richard Moat's letter would see that he said this could be done for a fraction of the cost. That is the difference.