Results 14,681-14,700 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: I note that Granahan McCourt is the lead but there are subcontractors included as well. Will they be included? Granahan McCourt may or may not have the finances, and there are issues about that, but the technical ability to deliver is the other side of it.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: I know I will be.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: It would be useful to see who has a beneficial interest in this.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: I want to go back to the MANs. Ireland has one of the most expensive State-owned broadband networks in Europe. The Minister issued a press statement after the Analysys Mason report was produced. The headline issue identified in that statement was that there was a 50% reduction to €2.60 per metre. We saw the response from BT to some of the points in the Analysys Mason report. The...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: They were comparing it with what they had been quoted prior to the announcement. I will suggest that they make a complaint because that seems to be needed to trigger someone to take a look at it. There is a real issue with cost here because we are out of line.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: I have read the report and do not need Mr. Griffin to read it back to me.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: The key issue is what the end user is getting-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: -----what the State input is, and whether we are getting value for money.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: It is quite useful to talk to the people who are providing the service-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: -----to find out about their interaction with Enet, for example, and it is very different from-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: I understand they were having difficulty talking to Enet but I will go back to them and to the Department.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: Okay, that is fine. The total that the State has spent on MANs so far is €176 million. That was a piece of information given to us by the chief executive officer of Enet. The revenue share represents about 5% of a return over the past 15 years. When we discussed this previously, one of the reasons for not going to tender was because investments were being made by Enet and there was...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: In short, Mr. Griffin is saying the Department believes it made the right decision.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: To take the national procurement policies, if one wants to buy a box of biros, one is supposed to secure three quotes. There were entities that were interested in quoting and expected an announcement. I am surprised that it happened as early as it did because there was some time to run. I expect people need a lead-in time to make investments and so on. What would have been the downside to...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: Would that not be a reason to examine the national procurement strategy and ask, given that only two entities provide that service, why we would do that because we would be held over a barrel? Surely one could make that argument for many things.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: The Analysys Mason report, BT in its response and some of the providers I mentioned were critical of how Enet have managed this in terms of pricing, transparency and a whole range of other things. That is what the report says. Enet has hardly been pristine in how it handled this.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: It is the follow-up to the report.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: Yes. The report identifies some of the failures. One could not say it has worked perfectly - far from it - and we have very expensive broadband.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: After the MANs contracts were allocated in 2004 and 2009, was it a question of leaving it to Enet to operate the system or was ongoing analysis done?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Broadband Service Provision: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Mar 2019)

Catherine Murphy: The pricing system is so vague that a big operator, BT, has spoken of a lack of transparency, discounts and so on. How does one get to that point?