Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. O'Leary discussed the issues to and fro with the Department on the NBP process. He is well aware of what Eir has stated about it being cumbersome, complex and difficult. Let us go back two years to when Mr. O'Leary was in the thick of it. If he was asked, in a relatively simplistic way, to say how he would deliver high-speed broadband - commensurate with what he was doing in the SIRO areas - to the 540,000 homes, would he have done it in the same way as that proposed in the context of the NBP process?

Yesterday, Eir told us that it has connected 300,000 homes to high-speed broadband in what it refers to as the 300k intervention area. It said that using the same model, criteria and standards it could connect 542,000 homes for €1 billion or less. It said that the difference between the €1 billion and €3 billion bid is to do with the complexity that was introduced, the inability to use existing infrastructure and the necessity to establish an entirely new wholesale operation and provide a different service-level agreement to customers.

To the uninitiated on this side of the room, myself included, it seems that the process undertaken by the Department was overly complex and aimed at creating a level playing pitch for everybody to compete on, rather than getting best value for money. The purpose was to create a level playing pitch so that anyone could come in, whether or not they had infrastructure. I am interested in how that relates not to Eir but to ESB.