Mr. Denis O'Leary:

I cannot comment on the bids of Granahan McCourt or Eir. The ESB found itself in a position, following Eir's decision to commercially connect and run high-speed broadband to 300,000 homes, that the risk profile and structure of the contract had changed entirely. As I said earlier, I am not suggesting that there was anything wrong in what Eir did. It was perfectly entitled to do it but it had a dramatic impact on the potential revenues for the business. That, with some other issues in the contract, meant that the shareholders of the ESB and Vodafone were no longer willing to continue to fund the team that was putting together the bid. That is why a decision was taken to withdraw.