We heard about the current status of the national broadband plan from officials of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment at the Committee of Public Accounts last week. The plan and the extremely faulty process associated with it have been subject to questions and concerns. Those questions have yielded few answers to date. The provision of effective and affordable broadband services across the country is, of course, a priority. We are, however, yet to be convinced that the provision of such services will be done in a cost-effective, transparent and sustainable way.

Serious concerns have been raised about the ability of the single remaining bidder, a consortium led by a US investment fund, to deliver on the project in the medium and long term. As a country, we are proposing to heavily subsidise the construction of a network that the private sector will then own. The same consortium, Enet, managed the metropolitan area networks, MANs, contract up to relatively recently. During that time, there was an absence of price transparency and we had some of the most expensive broadband in Europe. We cannot afford to heavily subsidise infrastructure only to find that it is underused.

While we were initially told the cost of the national broadband plan would be around €500 million, the Government and departmental officials have now conceded that the ultimate cost will be multiples of that figure. I expect the Tánaiste will respond with arguments about the importance of servicing rural Ireland. Will he guarantee that rural Ireland will not suffer as a result of initiatives being removed from Project Ireland 2040 to pay for the national broadband plan? The lack of competitive tension in the process, with only one remaining bidder, raises the question of whether the Government is certain the process is robust. If it proceeds, will it be the best possible deal? Is there a plan B or are we likely to be bounced into something that looks like it will cost billions rather than hundreds of millions of euro purely because we have supposedly gone too far in a flawed process? This smacks of lessons not having been learned from the national children's hospital shambles.

The Taoiseach has previously warned that the national broadband plan may not proceed if there is a no-deal Brexit. We all hope such a scenario will not arise. If the national broadband plan is a casualty of a no-deal Brexit, could that mean, given its importance, that Project Ireland 2040 will require a complete revision? How much has been set aside in Project Ireland 2040 for the national broadband plan? I ask that question given the Government has conceded that the national broadband plan will cost multiples of €500 million. From where is the extra money likely to come? What other projects earmarked in Project Ireland 2040 are likely to suffer as a result of the significant extra funding that will be required?

The national broadband plan, as the Deputy knows, aims to ensure every home, school and business in Ireland, regardless of how remote or rural, has access to high-speed broadband. We all have a responsibility to work to that end. This is being achieved through a combination of commercial investment across Ireland and a State intervention in those areas, mostly rural, where commercial operators acting alone are unlikely to invest. The national broadband plan has been a catalyst in encouraging investment by the telecoms sector. In 2012, fewer than 700,000, or 30%, of all 2.3 million Irish premises had access to high-speed broadband. Today, 74% of premises can access high-speed broadband.

The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, has said that he wants to bring the procurement process to a fair and impartial conclusion as quickly as possible. He has stated he will bring a proposal to Government for approval before Easter, in other words, in the next couple of weeks.

The ultimate cost to the State of delivering high-speed broadband to more than 500,000 premises in the intervention area was always going to be determined by the procurement process relating to the national broadband plan. This was part of its design and enables the subsidy required to be identified in advance of the Government making a final decision to proceed. We will, therefore, be making a decision with our eyes wide open in respect of cost. It is clearly not going to be cheap. We will now have to make a decision on whether we want to proceed. The cost is high due to the significant ambition of the project and the scale of the build. This one-off intervention will provide broadband to approximately 540,000 premises and will involve the laying of fibre along more than 100,000 km of road across 96% of the landmass of Ireland. It will result in high speeds of 150 Mbps, which will increase to 500 Mbps by the tenth year. The customer charge needs to be the same in rural and urban areas. The plan involves operating the network in a future-proofed way for the next 25 years.

The Minister is trying to ensure that the test the Deputy suggests, that this be cost-effective, transparent, and sustainable into the future, will be met. He will have to bring a proposal before Cabinet and we will need to make a collective decision. I suspect there will also be a lot of outreach to other parties in this House to ensure that this is done in a fully transparent way. If we make the decision to go ahead with the plan, we will be investing with a full understanding of what it will cost and of what we will get for that expenditure over the next 25 years.

The Tánaiste did not answer any of my questions. Will Project Ireland 2040 have to be revisited? From where will the extra money come? We have been told by the Taoiseach and departmental officials that it is going to cost multiples of €500 million, so what is going to fall out of the Project Ireland 2040 plan? These are very important questions and we want to hear an answer to them. We were told that the outline of the tender would be brought before the Dáil in advance of a contract being signed. Will that be subject to a vote of the Dáil? That is important. These are the questions I want answered.

With respect, it is unreasonable to ask me to outline the implications of the cost of this plan without knowing the scale of that cost. I do not know what the cost is going to be; it has not come before Cabinet yet. As a result, I am not able to give the Deputy an answer. Without that answer, I cannot give her an indication of the implications of that cost in the context of Project Ireland 2040. I would have thought that was self-evident. We need the Minister to bring a proposal before Cabinet and, ultimately, before this House first so that we can make a decision as to whether it represents value for money with regard to what we are trying to achieve at the end of a long process. One of the reasons this has taken time is that only one entity is still tendering. This means that the cost-benefit analysis needs to be very robust in order to ensure that the State gets full value for money. That process is now coming to an end. The Minister will bring a proposal to Cabinet for its consideration when he has one ready. We will then have a much clearer understanding of what this will cost and I will then be able to answer the questions the Deputy has raised.

We have gone considerably over time. I appeal to Members to adhere to the time allocated.