Mr. T.J. Malone:

I do not think that the missing of deadlines or demands we have had over the past 12 or 18 months has been down to a lack of availability of manpower. It has been down to the operating environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We just could not physically get out there or could not estimate what would hit us from that perspective. From an actual manpower point of view, we believe the contractors have sufficient capacity on the ground. We are also seeing that at present.

As Mr. Hendrick said, the level of fibre we are rolling out at present is enough to go from here to Paris on a monthly basis and that has been so for the past three months. We stepped that up, as Eir has stepped up its area. Part of it is the poling capacity. If there is an area in poling capacity, that is probably our tightest pinch because that takes more time to ramp up as specialised machinery is involved that needs to be brought into the country and manufactured. That is why, when we carried out an agreement with Eir on 1 October, it was based on an incremental step between 1 October this year to 1 January next year, in different phases, which gave Eir time to seek people and machinery.