Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to address the Minister on this issue. My point of view and that of my party is that we want the broadband plan to be rolled out yesterday. It is supposed to be rolled out by 2020, but that commitment in the programme for Government is obviously dead. I do not believe there was any intention on the part of the former Minister to gain personally from his meetings with Mr. McCourt. However, it does show how easy it is for big businessmen and Ministers to meet and how often it happens. As an observer of the process and seeing it at first hand, it certainly shocked me. The problem with such meetings is that they show a certain panic on the part of the Government and departmental officials. It illustrates the power of the one bidder who is left. The Government has left the roll-out of the entire national broadband plan in the hands of one venture capitalist. On the one hand, an American venture capitalist is the only bidder. He can name his price, or the Government will lose him. On the other hand, there is the French venture capitalist who owns Eir which was sold off by Fianna Fáil in 1999. That party owns a lot of the infrastructure on which it is to be rolled out. The Government is trapped. How is it going to find its way out? Does it have a plan B? Some have said in recent days that the process may collapse. It is certainly shaky. If it goes ahead as matters stand, it will be a shambles because of the way it has been compromised.

There is one other thing I want to ask about. Given the fact that the bidder had so much access to the Government and whoever else, do we have any idea if the taxpayer has been left exposed as a result? We have heard figures of €500 million and €3 billion. Where do Joe and Mary taxpayer stand in all of this?

Six years ago we, in Sinn Féin, proposed an examination of the State infrastructure, the ESB network, the network of heavy duty cables across the State known as the backhaul system and the metropolitan area networks in 104 towns. We proposed examining that infrastructure as the backbone of a publicly owned network. Is the Government looking at it as a plan B?

Moreover, I want the Minister to address the issue of the contractor. The bidder has changed substantially. There were three parties involved in the process and the 300,000 premises that were easiest to reach were sold off.

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