Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister of State's reply. It is not the first time he has given it this evening. I spoke with NBI earlier and, as such, there is an element of my carrying out a fraud, for which I apologise. It just happened that I got the telephone call earlier, before I came into the House to speak on this question. In fairness, the NBI offered me similar information to what the Minister of State has just given. Reference was made to the Department having eyes on the section 254 applications that are in place and that things are looking positive as regards dealing with local authorities and planning out the whole system. The NBI representative also mentioned that acceleration requires a complete audit of everything and looking to almost double capacity in reference to the past two years, if everything is moved from years six and seven into years four and five. The major consideration at this stage is the importance of there being a contractual footing and the interaction with Eir and the ESB with a view to ensuring everyone has capacity and can deliver on the project.

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