Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The roll-out of high-speed rural broadband is key to the national digital strategy. The Labour Party and everyone in the House wants to see high-speed rural broadband delivered as soon as possible, but the Labour Party believes that Ireland must maintain public ownership if we are to avoid the disastrous mistakes that followed the Telecom Éireann sell-off.

Last week, the Taoiseach alluded to the fact that the Government had a choice between two models - a gap funding model and a full concession model. The key difference between the two is ownership of the assets at the end of the contract term. In gap funding, the bidder would own the assets outright. If there was a concession agreement, the State would be the ultimate owner.

In July 2016, the then Minister, Deputy Naughten, stated that he was advised that, under a full concession model, the entire cost of the project would be placed on the Government's balance sheet, with serious implications for the available capital funding for other critical expenditure items such as climate change, housing and health, which he said he could not justify. In short, he implied that the gap funding model would not appear on the Government's balance sheet and that that was the reason for it being selected. According to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's memo to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, in January, however, either option would ensure that all of the assets and their cost would be classified as on-balance sheet. As such, Deputy Naughten and the entire Government made the decision on the basis of a false premise. Does the Taoiseach accept that the rationale that the then Minister publicly gave for choosing the gap funding model was mistaken?

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