Results 11,121-11,140 of 20,156 for speaker:Brian Stanley

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: We will now break for ten minutes.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: If everyone is happy to wait for the caffeine, the Deputy can go ahead.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: We will break for ten minutes.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: I have some questions on the targets in the broadband plan. The original targets were 115,000 premises by January 2022 and 204,000 by January 2023. It has been confirmed that 85,000 premises should be passed by then. There were remedial targets. The targets were then changed and reduced to 60,000 by January 2022 but NBI had only passed 34,000 premises at that stage, which was 30% of the...

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: Is the target set by the NBI board?

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: Are the revised targets set by NBI?

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: I understand that. I am asking a very direct question. In the case of the Department not being happy, what leverage does it have to hold the board of this private company to account, considering the fact the taxpayer is ponying up between 85% and 90% of the money for the roll-out of this programme?

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: Has the Minister, the Secretary General, or the Department in conjunction with the Minister, considered rejecting any of NBI's targeted revisions downwards when it looks for such revisions?

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: In reality, the Department or the Minister has very little leverage here.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: That has not yet been used.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: I know that. That had to do with reset targets that were missed. Eight and a half months were allowed to NBI due to Covid delays. It came in at the start of this year at 30% of where it should have been in January 2022, but it was allowed eight and a half months. I do not recall telecommunications being closed down for eight and a half months.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: If my recall is correct, telecommunications was closed down for three to four months.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: Does the sanction relate specifically to those periods of disruption caused by Covid?

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: Are any sanctions pending from April 2021 onwards with regard to the roll-out?

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: I have a question about Eir. It owns much of the ducting and poles. The original intervention area included 750,000 premises. The Minister and Government decided to pick about 220,000, as I recall.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: Sorry, 300,000. I would call them lower-hanging fruit. I can identify blue areas on the map where the roll-out happened. That presents a significant difficulty. It mainly picked up the fringes of towns and villages and heavily-populated clusters of ribbon development on the outskirts of towns, maybe a mile up the road. Through this scheme, the taxpayer was going to have to pay for that...

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: That was there commercially.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: Let me just make this point.

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: That was done commercially. Why were those areas ever included in a broadband plan to be funded by the taxpayer when they could be serviced commercially? It is obvious from looking at the maps. The easiest way to do it is to look at an area one is familiar with. One can then identify exactly where a commercial operator could have done it. In Clonkeen in Portlaoise, for example, there...

Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General - Chapter 9: Implementation of the National Broadband Plan (13 Oct 2022)

Brian Stanley: Why were they ever included in an intervention area to receive subvention from the taxpayer when they could have been picked up by a commercial operator in the first place?