Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Eir has suggested that it could do this project for less by abandoning some of the essential conditions that were imposed at the very start of the process. Those essential conditions involved showing that it had the cash and financial commitments to deliver the project. They involved showing that there would be governance of the state aid in order to ensure that we could see that any money provided to the company was used exactly for the purposes for which it was intended. These conditions also involved penalties and performance clawbacks in the event that the company did not deliver and that every home would have 100% delivery of high-speed, future-proofed broadband.

The Deputy must indicate which of those requirements set out in the original national broadband plan he wants to jettison. When those requirements designed to protect the State were put there, Eir was in the process. It made a bid of €2.7 billion. It made no alternative offer because it withdrew from the process. There was engagement with the process but Eir made its decision not to do so.

Now, very late in the day, Eir is offering three alternative prices at which it suggests it could do the project but, in all of those cases, it is proposing to jettison the essential conditions of the contract that are there to protect the State and the rural user and to comply with state aid rules. That is the difficulty with the proposal being put forward.

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