Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The procurement board provides independent advice on the procurement process and the separate steering group provides independent oversight on the strategy and again includes national and international experts in the field. International benchmarks for projects such as these have been incorporated into the governance and procurement processes. The steering group and procurement board are separate from the procurement team’s evaluations and engagement with bidders. The governance model is consistent with EU state aid guidelines and structured to address the requirements of the European Regional Development Fund and the Government’s public spending code.

Fianna Fáil is also conceding the point that what it calls a sealed tender process is not the appropriate process to appoint a company to roll out this network. It is important that people at least acknowledge that this is not a tender process in the traditional sense. In fairness, most people accept that the competitive dialogue procurement procedure which we are using is common practice internationally for projects of this nature and complexity. It enables and does not inhibit greater participation throughout the process.

The procurement process opens up a dialogue with selected candidates in order to identify and define the means best suited to deliver a national broadband plan. It is also important to point out that a bidder cannot go back on matters. Complexity is not coming from the procurement process; it is coming from the nature and scale of the project.

The remaining bidder, enet, has already identified its final issues for discussion with the procurement team and this list was submitted some weeks ago while competition remained in the process. Yes, for commercial reasons two companies have pulled out; but Deputies must also remember that for commercial reasons we have seen the build-out of broadband across this country. The national broadband plan has been the catalyst for this massive investment. That has been publicly acknowledged by the commentators and technical journalists in this field.

When I became Minister 21 months ago, five out of ten homes in this country had access to high-speed broadband. Today that figure is seven out of ten. By the end of this year it will be close to eight out of ten and it also means that the vast majority of villages across Ireland will have access up to 1,000 Mbps high-speed broadband by the end of this year. Villages like New Inn in east Galway will now have broadband speeds equivalent to what is available in New York city.

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