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

If the Government was in the business of trying to hide information, it would not have published what it published yesterday. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment will take questions on all of these issues for two hours after today's sos. I am sure he will appear before a committee on this issue for many hours over several months and, in particular, on the finalisation of the contract, which, hopefully, will happen over the next six months. What is being paid for, and what will be provided under a regulatory model, is a wholesale infrastructure proposition. Many others will also be able to use this infrastructure.

It is clear that without significant State intervention, the market would and could not have delivered this commercially. The State will be contributing up to and probably less than half of the cost of delivery of this infrastructure. The numbers bear that out. That is what we have negotiated over about 800 hours of negotiation with the various bidders during this process. After all of that, the Government has rightly concluded that this is the right decision. It does represent value for money even though it is a significant investment. The absence of this investment would open up a divide in Ireland that we certainly cannot support.

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