Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 13 October 2022

Public Accounts Committee

2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan

9:30 am

Mr. Fergal Mulligan:

If a milestone scheduled for June is reached in March, the company would be ahead of schedule. We will hit the company if it is late but we give it an incentive to be early. It will get a credit if it is early. This is how it works.

On the operations front, we have a number of reports on our desks that we are still reviewing. Sanctions of approximately €20,000 have been applied. A number of sanctions will be applied in due course. There are approximately seven reports for seven quarters on our desks. They will conclude in the coming weeks. I will not say what the sanctions are but they will be applied. They are not fully imposed yet. Until this is done, we will not say what the number is. This will continue for 25 years. If the company breaches key performance indicators, we will impose sanctions. For example, if the company is supposed to connect premises within a certain timeframe and misses the target, we will impose a sanction. If the network is down in somebody's house for a number of hours beyond what it should be, we will impose a sanction. This will continue for 25 years. While it is approximately €20,000 now, this time next year it will be a different amount if the company breaches key performance indicators. Every quarter we will report on sanctions.