Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 February 2022

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
National Broadband Plan Expenditure and Related Matters

9:30 am

Ms Jenny Fisher:

I will be brief. Because we have incurred delays, there is a process under the contract whereby we must go to the Department and show a root cause analysis as to why those delays occurred, what plans we are putting in place to mitigate their impact and how we are going to bring things back on track. We have been engaged in that process with the Department for the past three months or so. It is an involved process that looks at how the milestones will be recalibrated in order to adjust the delivery, recognising the impact of Covid-19 on the programme and other challenges in the mobilisation phase. That is all evidence based, which gives the Department appropriate assurance that we are taking all the steps we should be taking to ensure we are managing this in the best way possible.