Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Can the Taoiseach explain the rationale that led the Government, yesterday, to approve the gap-funded model for delivering broadband? This will entail a 26-year contract with private providers, at the end of which the networks will be privately owned. The reasons publicly given for the decision were that this would be cheaper than direct State funding and would be off balance sheet so as to free up capital spending elsewhere. We have poor broadband in this country, particularly in rural areas, because of the decision by Fianna Fáil to privatise Eircom in the biggest economic mistake this country made until Fianna Fáil's even more disastrous mistake in giving the blanket bank guarantee in 2008. This Government is about to repeat that mistake. Just as the State was ultimately required to buy back the West Link toll bridge for €600 million, ensuring that the private company, National Toll Roads, received a staggering €1.15 billion return on its investment of €35 million to build the bridge, as estimated by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, we will ultimately have to reacquire the broadband infrastructure in exactly the same way.

Fine Gael agreed with the Labour Party that vital infrastructure networks, such as the electricity and gas distribution networks, should be kept in public ownership. We came to that agreement over the past five years, albeit after a battle, but now that understanding of the importance of the distribution systems for a vital resource seems to be gone.

As the Taoiseach knows, the previous Government had two options when we decided this last December. One was the model he decided on yesterday, the so-called gap funding model, or a full concession model whereby the asset, after the 25 years, came back into public ownership. Will the Taoiseach accept that yesterday's decision is short termism and not in the public interest? Will he agree that all relevant documentation and all the advice given to Government on this matter should be laid before this House in order that we can make a collective determination before this matter is finalised?

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