Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Representatives of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform raised concerns here. They were similar to the concerns raised in the memorandum to the Government. A very unusual, separate memorandum was sent to Ministers. At the end, it effectively stated the process should be stopped and that the Government should start with a State entity - it was not specified which exactly - providing a revised roll-out. Eir stated yesterday one of the reasons it withdrew or encountered difficulty was that it would have had to set up a completely separate wholesale division, with all the various pricing arrangements and so on. If the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform had its way and there was a re-initiated process whereby the State was seeking to manage the initiative, similar to the way in which it proceeded with the MANs, would the system set up with SIRO, with its wholesale management, resources and the expertise built up, be able to respond to the Department if it came looking for the resources to be used in the way it outlined?