Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My question relates to the completion of the tender process and the options if the State decides not to go ahead with the current tender process. In 2012 Sinn Féin brought forward a proposal that we use the State and semi-State infrastructure already in place, in particular the ESB and metropolitan area network, MAN, systems. A strange thing happened over the weekend. The Taoiseach and leader of the Minister's party said on Sunday that we could not use the ESB pole infrastructure for this purpose. In fact, he said we could not use poles at all, that it all had to be underground, even in rural areas. If that is the case, the ducting will have to be run underground as far the Black Valley in County Kerry, but it is not the case. I do not know who is briefing the Taoiseach. Is he not aware that Eir is already using poles? Is he not aware that the ESB is already using poles to hang SIRO broadband fibre cables? Let us try to put that notion to bed. It raised significant concerns for me when I heard the Taoiseach talking about it at the weekend. There are question marks over whether the Government and the Taoiseach fully understand the entire process. There have been four Ministers involved in this process and it looks farcical from the outside. We have one bidder and costs that have gone from €500 million to €3 billion. The Government has no bargaining power. Does the Minister honestly believe this is still a competitive tender process? Is the real story not that the whole project is in serious trouble?

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