Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I too grew up on a farm and I know that if one goes to a market with a bullock and there is only one person there to buy it, one will take the price the person wants to offer. The Tánaiste is now suggesting that the Government now somehow has the upper hand. It is at the market and there is only one person there. Its back is to the wall. If the Government thinks it will be able to achieve the deadline which the Minister, Deputy Naughten, keeps avoiding questions on or that somehow it will get value for money for the taxpayer, it needs to wake up because it is not going to happen.

The fact of the matter is that the two companies with the greatest footprint in the State, the greatest experience and the most established operators which understand the marketplace have pulled out. If it is not plain to the Tánaiste and the Government that there is a serious problem with the contract and tender it is proposing, then it does not understand what is going on. It is about time that the Government faced up to what is happening. People are deeply concerned that the Government is not even committed to providing broadband to the 540,000 homes which need it. If it was, it would have treated this in a far more serious manner.

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