Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I am genuinely not aware of the dispute with the polers that the Deputy has mentioned. I will see the Minister, Deputy Ryan, this afternoon and I will mention to him that it was raised in the Dáil and he might be able to inform me, or inform the Deputy directly, as to what is the difficulty.

As the Deputy knows, the contract is given to National Broadband Ireland and it will employ and is employing subcontractors to do a lot of the work on the ground. There is an oversight mechanism in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications which is responsible for communications networks to make sure this is project managed, driven and delivered. We would expect that if the main contractor, NBI, is getting paid by the taxpayer, it should honour any agreements it has with subcontractors to make sure the money goes down the line. It should honour any contracts and commitments it makes with subcontractors, so we would expect that to happen.

I think it is good that the national broadband plan is now a reality. I remember being in that school in Wicklow and being present for the signing of the contract and I remember somebody saying to me that despite all the controversy, I would never regret the day the contract was signed. I do not think we will regret it. I think it will come in cheaper than the price, by the way. It is the reverse of the children's hospital contract. It can go down and it cannot go up, so I think it will actually come in at a lower cost than the €3 billion which was quoted at the time.

As the Deputy said, the work is now under way and it is going to connect 1 million people across rural Ireland to high-speed broadband and over 500,000 homes, farms and businesses. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is how essential this service is because people living in rural Ireland, running a business, running a farm, trying to access education or attending college from home, need this service. It is as essential as electricity, water or landline phone lines in the old days. I think we made the right investment and it will pay off.

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