Mr. Michael Mahon:

It is not. It becomes much safer. That is why the ESB, as with other companies, considered using fibre on its infrastructure. We have been doing that successfully for 20 years.

With regard to the Senator's previous comment on the process, the Department went to great lengths, which I give it credit for, to ensure that there was a proper process from the start. This ensured that only competent bidders with the technical and commercial capability to deliver on the end project got through the pre-qualification process. Things might have changed for us but the Department followed that process from the start, in December 2015, until today.