Mr. Mark Griffin:

I will not go back over the Covid-19 issues because they are well covered in the letter I provided the committee on 17 January. I did not hear the session with NBI this morning but I understand that it covered that to a significant extent as well. The Covid-19 impacts were very significant. One of the challenges was that when the engineers went out to do the build on the ground they were seeing things that could not have been anticipated at the time that the contract was being put together, such as in the condition of the underground network. That has led to the challenges in addressing the deficiencies as identified, engaging with Eir to have them remedied and ensuring proper governance arrangements for all that work to be pulled together. As I said, good progress has been made with Eir in additional poles and duct being rehabilitated under the programme. That is a positive. It is important that both parties remain engaged to make sure that any wrinkles in the "make ready" programme are identified, escalated and addressed and that there is an appropriate governance and oversight mechanism in place to make sure that is as smooth as possible. When building on an existing network with somewhere in the region of 99 km to 146 km of fibre cable, depending on whether you are talking about premises passed or premises connected, and 10,000 km to 15,000 km of duct to be reused, you will come across those difficulties.