For the avoidance of doubt I reiterate Fianna Fáil's position, which is that we fully support the rapid roll-out of high-speed broadband to the 542,000 homes, farms, schools and business premises dotted throughout rural and semi-rural parts of this country. The Government announcement on broadband, within two weeks of the local and European elections, does not indicate a rapid roll-out, and the plan does not represent a transparent, value for money proposition for the taxpayer. It is an attempt by the Taoiseach to portray Fine Gael as the champion of rural dwellers. If people had any doubts about the motives behind the timing of this announcement, their suspicions will have been confirmed the following morning when each Member of this House was presented with a glossy pack specific to each constituency outlining the relevant positive aspects of the announcement to assist Fine Gael representatives attempting to convince rural voters on the doorsteps over the final days of an election campaign. It is a rather bizarre move when no contract has been signed and when we are told by the Government that it may not be signed for a further six months. In fact, there are real concerns as to whether it will ever be signed.

I assume that at this stage the Tánaiste has realised this spin just will not wash with those people who have been waiting patiently for the broadband they have been promised on numerous occasions. The announcement is, in fact, a further betrayal of rural dwellers. Far from being a breakthrough, this announcement confirms further delay in broadband delivery on top of the many delays already experienced. The Fine Gael manifesto promised high-speed broadband to 100% of homes, farms, and business premises by 2020 but this week's announcement is a confirmation that this will not happen until 2027. That is the best case scenario; it is more likely to take much longer. Could it be 2030 or 2040?

Today's edition of The Irish Times carries another leak from a Government source that indicates the total cost of the broadband project will be approximately €5 billion. It is clear that the motivation behind this leak is to imply that Granahan McCourt is investing €2 billion. However, any analysis of the redacted memo from the Secretary General, Mr. Watt, would conclude that the actual capital to be invested by Granahan McCourt is much less. Will the Tánaiste confirm that there is no commercial impediment to the publication of this figure? Will he outline to the House what that number is?

Over recent days the Taoiseach and a number of Ministers have sought to play down the value of the asset at the end of the 25-year period. This assertion is entirely disingenuous as their comments have concentrated on the value of the physical infrastructure after 25 years. Will the Tánaiste confirm that the real value at the end of the intervention period is the monopoly access to a customer base which, by the Government's projections, comprises more than 400,000 homes and premises? These homes and premises will have no alternative but to use this infrastructure, for which they will pay a monthly fee. Will he also confirm that Granahan McCourt's investment will be paid back after eight years and will continue to earn substantial returns over the remaining 17 years? Will he further confirm that, in the end, it will own the network and the potential revenue generated by those 400,000 customers while the taxpayer will have no stake and will receive no return on the investment?

I thank the Deputy for raising this question and giving me an opportunity to clarify matters relating to some of the concerns he has outlined. If the Government had not made the decision we have made, Opposition parties would attack us on the basis of delays, indecision, and a betrayal of rural Ireland. We made this decision as soon as we could stand over it. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, made a recommendation to Cabinet, which was accepted after approximately four hours of debate. I was not there myself because I was in the UK, but I have had long conversations with the Minister, the Taoiseach, and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, on this issue.

The rest of the Cabinet and I are satisfied that we have made the right decision. We have not made it because the local elections are a few weeks away. This is a decision for the country for the next 35 years and beyond. It is about future-proofing rural Ireland for the technological change we know is happening. It is about ensuring that there is not a digital divide across this country based on where one lives or one's address. We are making the largest capital commitment in terms of investment in rural Ireland since electrification. I hope we will get support from other parties in our efforts to do that.

Of course, Opposition parties need to test the Government and to hold it fully to account. That is why we have released all of the information relating to the debate that took place within Government and within Departments before this decision was made. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has tested this decision very robustly. The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment has very robustly defended that decision and has made the case for it using independent cost-benefit analysis and so on. The job of Government, however, is to make decisions and to explain them. Its job is to make decisions in a transparent manner and in the full knowledge of the cost, which may be up to €3 billion but may well be much less in light of the different scenarios that may unfold. It should also be taken into account that the €3 billion includes VAT and a very significant contingency of more than €500 million. This is a significant decision, but it is one which will be transformative for rural Ireland in terms of opportunity. If we did not make it, we would restrict the availability of what will become essential services through high-speed broadband in the future.

Regarding what is commercially sensitive and what is not, the Government is not in a position at this moment in time to give a figure for what equity the bidder itself is putting in because there is still a negotiation to conclude with regard to finalising the contract. That figure will be published in time and it will be proportionate to the commercial return available to the bidder in the context of the infrastructure it has an obligation to deliver on.

If this was not an election stunt, I doubt the Government would have produced this document in advance of the contract being signed. Considering that the tendering process is over, there is no reason whatsoever that number cannot be published. As I have said, any analysis of the memorandum from the Secretary General, Mr. Watt, would show clearly that the contribution being made by Granahan McCourt is rather small in comparison to the return. I ask the Tánaiste again to confirm a number of things. Will he confirm that Granahan McCourt will have all its money back after eight years, that it will have the capacity to earn substantial amounts over the remaining 17 years, and that, at the end of that period, it will own the network and will have exclusive access to those 400,000 customers and the revenue they will generate? The Tánaiste is not prepared to tell us now what Granahan McCourt is putting up to get all of that money in the future. That is highly disingenuous of him and I suspect it has more to do with him not wanting to put that information before the electorate in the throes of an election campaign.

If the Government was in the business of trying to hide information, it would not have published what it published yesterday. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment will take questions on all of these issues for two hours after today's sos. I am sure he will appear before a committee on this issue for many hours over several months and, in particular, on the finalisation of the contract, which, hopefully, will happen over the next six months. What is being paid for, and what will be provided under a regulatory model, is a wholesale infrastructure proposition. Many others will also be able to use this infrastructure.

It is clear that without significant State intervention, the market would not and could not have delivered this commercially. The State will be contributing up to and probably less than half of the cost of delivery of this infrastructure. The numbers bear that out. That is what we have negotiated over about 800 hours of negotiation with the various bidders during this process. After all of that, the Government has rightly concluded that this is the right decision. It does represent value for money even though it is a significant investment. The absence of this investment would open up a divide in Ireland that we certainly cannot support.

As a Deputy representing a largely rural constituency, I know first hand the importance of rolling out broadband to every home across the State. It is essential that we deliver high-speed broadband in rural Ireland. People want, need and deserve it. However, that actually means delivering it and being sure that the capacity exists to do so. Unfortunately, the national broadband plan as currently constituted could amount to a red herring, costing us billions of euro and still leaving homes and businesses without access to adequate broadband. That is the crux of the problem. This process began back in 2012 when the then Minister, former Deputy Pat Rabbitte, in the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government, promised high-speed broadband would be delivered to every home, farm and business across the State, ending by 2020. That promise has been broken spectacularly. Eight years on we do not have a yard of fibre laid under this plan. Under the new plan, many in rural Ireland will be lucky to have high-speed broadband by the later stage of the next decade. This simply is not good enough.

The documents published yesterday highlight serious significant flaws in the plan that no one in government has yet addressed. The documents we have seen from officials and the Secretary General in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform raise questions about the capacity of the bidder to deliver this project. I share those concerns. They have called into question the capacity of the Department to oversee the project and I share those concerns. They recognise that the bidding process has failed to deliver a competitive tender and that the bidder has been able to name its price. They say the cost-benefit analysis is simply not credible and that it appears there has been cooking of the books in this matter. The strongest criticism, which worries me and my party the most, is that the bidder does not have adequate skin in the game and could walk away from this project any time after it has recouped its investment. That is highlighted in numerous documents and it is extremely worrying. It amounts to abandoning rural Ireland once again. What we have is a botched process. There is a big worry that it is not going to be delivered at all. Rural Ireland needs high-speed broadband: we can all agree on that and no one disputes it. However, the Government has made a complete and utter mess of this process and it is flawed. The unfortunate reality and real casualty of all this is the 500,000 houses and businesses that are still without broadband. Many will be without broadband for years to come.

There is time to put things right. No contract has been signed. There are alternative solutions that need to be considered in a serious light, giving the stinging criticism from officials in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The Tánaiste says they have been robustly tested. They could not have been. The criticism only landed on the Minister's desk last week. He had no chance to test them. The memo was only sent to the Minister on 3 May. There are options there, for example a State-wide provider to deal with broadband, as we called for many years ago. Will the Tánaiste look at the other options? Will he give us full clarity as to how much skin this private equity firm has in the game? We might then at least be confident that the Department's comments may not be credible when it tells us time and again there is no incentive for the bidder to complete this project.

I am glad we agree on one thing, namely that rural Ireland needs broadband. We have been talking about this for far too long and not delivering it for homes and businesses in what is now referred to as the intervention area. There are 540,000 premises that have no prospect of getting the kind of high-speed broadband that most people in this House would accept that everyone - homes and businesses - will need in the not-too-distant future. We now have a plan that the Government believes will work. It has been robustly tested. It is true that concerns have been raised but those concerns have been responded to in a lot of detail. One of the letters that was released yesterday from the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, which is three pages long and outlines serious concerns, got a comprehensive response from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment.

It was a very long response.

It is a letter of 14 or 15 pages. That is why the Government spent four hours in its meeting on Tuesday talking through these issues and getting detailed explanations from the Minister, Deputy Bruton, as to the response to some of the concerns raised by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. I am satisfied that those questions have been answered. This is about laying 147,000 km of fibre. It is about delivering speeds of 150 Mbps increasing to 500 Mbps from year ten. It is about ensuring that customers in rural Ireland are charged the same as in urban Ireland, which costs the State significant amounts of money. That is what we are committing to. The contract is not just about rolling out fibre and delivering the speeds, however. It is also about operating it for the next 25 to 35 years. It also ensures that the risk management linked to this project is by and large carried by the bidder. If there is down-side risk, in other words, if there is not sufficient uptake of this infrastructure, that risk is carried solely by the bidder. If there is more uptake than is anticipated, the benefit is shared by the State in terms of claw-back. Let us not forget that there are conditions in this arrangement, which will become a contract, whereby the State essentially pays in arrears. The infrastructure is delivered first, we meet certain targets and then we pay out. The bidder needs to provide the working capital, which is significant, to be able to build out that infrastructure in the meantime until they meet the targets which will trigger staged payments as the infrastructure is rolled out. As the Minister, Deputy Bruton, has said, they have looked at the risk and management of this up, down and inside out to ensure we have provided as much certainty as possible from the State for one of the most important infrastructure roll-outs that we have seen in a generation.

The final submission from the Department only arrived a couple of days ago. How the Government looked at it upside down and inside out and all over the place beggars belief. The problem is that there are serious criticisms and question marks over whether this plan will ever be delivered. They have not been answered. A senior official is saying there are questions whether the bidder has the capacity to deliver it. Set that to one side. It is repeated in three different documents that there are questions about the bidder abandoning the process using language stating there is no incentive to honour the contract for its duration, risking further losses. This is because there is so little skin in the game on the part of the investor. He will have recouped all of his investment before the project has been delivered. The Tánaiste has failed to address those issues. They have not been addressed by any official or by anybody. Rural Ireland has had to wait and listen to promise after promise being made by political parties in government that this will be delivered. Now there are serious questions from senior officials and other officials saying the project may never be delivered because the Department does not have the capacity to oversee it. The cost-benefit analysis is not credible; they are saying there was cooking of the books.

They are saying that the bidder does not have the capacity and that there is no incentive for the bidder-----

Please Deputy, the time is up.

-----to deliver on this project after a number of years if further losses are incurred.

What I want on behalf of my constituents who do not have broadband is certainty. If we are going down this road, we need to be sure it will be delivered. Those questions have not been answered. This is why there is an onus on the Government to consult with the rest-----

Deputy, I ask you please-----

I will finish with this. There is an onus on the Government to consult with the rest and look at the alternative options that will provide certainty that we will finally have broadband in our rural communities.

The Deputy asked whether the alternatives have been assessed. They have been assessed through this process but also before it. Some people ask why we are committing this amount of money when technology may change over the next 25 years and we may be able to do this through mobile networks, wireless systems and so on. This argument has held up progress in Ireland for decades. If we look at what the private sector is doing today, we can see that it is investing in fibre because that is what is being demanded in the marketplace, households and businesses. That is what the State is also committing to do now - investing in rolling out 147,000 km of fibre on existing poles.

Answer my questions.

We are satisfied that through this bidding process, which one should not forget has taken three years, there has been the appropriate due diligence to test the capacity of the remaining bidder to be able to deliver on the scope of this project, which, after all, is about rolling out fibre. It is not rocket science. It is about rolling out fibre into more than 500,000 premises. That is what this is about - providing a wholesale platform to be able to ensure that rural Ireland paying effectively a subsidised rate can ensure it gets access to the services that infrastructure is providing to urban Ireland today.