Mr. Mark Griffin:

The targets for this year were 115,000 and at the end of contract year 2, the equivalent would be 60,000. I take the Deputy's point and there is no effort on my part to use clever language in an opening statement to duck the fact that we are behind in the project. Every one of us in the Department who is engaged in this is acutely aware of how important this is in rural Ireland, more so now that we have been through a year and a half when the vast majority of office workers and primary, secondary and third level students have been working from home. We feel the anxiety to get this project delivered as quickly as we possibly can. In fairness to the company, I covered a bit of this in the opening statement but it was elaborated on when the company appeared before the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications on 15 September, it had a situation at one point where 40% of its staff in one of its main subcontractors either had Covid or were close contacts. That is the reality of the situation it has dealt with on the ground.