Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are about 80 people working on this for the State to get the contract right. We are expecting it to be concluded by September so that we can roll out State-sponsored broadband delivery rapidly after that. This is on top of what is already happening commercially, with about 300 farms per week, if the Deputy wants to raise the issue of agriculture, getting access to broadband. We want to accelerate that in parts of Ireland that do not have commercial solutions.

The idea that we should at this stage, because one operator has pulled out and we have another operator confirming that it wants to get on and do the business, stall the whole process and ask for another panel of experts to make recommendations would mean that nothing would happen for probably years and we would be starting all over again. The Minister has an assurance that, actually, we are almost where we need to be in terms of spending hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers' money to make sure that rural Ireland gets the broadband it needs.

We are going to see this through. It has been complex and difficult, but we were only months away from approving a preferred bidder before September. That has essentially been fast-forwarded now and we need to work with Enet and others in the consortium which are big players in the sector. This is not a small operation. It is as big as the ESB or some of the bidders which have pulled out.

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