The Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment which is looking at the national broadband plan met representatives of Eir yesterday. They indicated that the experience Eir had of rolling out broadband to 340,000 rural houses gave it a certain credibility. It believes it could achieve roll-out to the remaining rural houses for less than €1 billion, which is one third of the price projected under the proposed national broadband plan.

This is, however, the same charge that applies in the rest of the country. It would require slightly different service level arrangements but, again, these would be the same that apply in the rest of the country. Eir is adamant that it can do it. Contrary to what the Taoiseach said yesterday in response to questions on this matter in the Dáil, the company said the provision would include connection right to the house. It includes the last-mile connection - the overhead wire to the home. The committee is due to finish its work shortly. We are due to have a final meeting with the Department. Will the Government respond to the request Eir sent a year and a half ago to meet and to examine that cheaper option? Will the Department inform itself of the advantages, disadvantages, and possibilities in order that we can have an informed discussion as to whether this is a practical alternative at our latest meeting with the Department?

I have answered questions on this topic this afternoon. Perhaps I can summarise my response. The Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment wrote to Eir this morning to seek clarity on a number of aspects of what its representatives told the committee yesterday. There is a big gap between the bid they made only a year ago and what they told the committee. Eir made a bid of €2.7 billion, which was slightly higher than the bid made by Granahan McCourt. When it pulled out, the company had complaints about the high risks and the level of Government oversight requested, and it refused to give any guarantee in respect of the amount of equity it would put into the project. The Deputy will recall that there was a lot of criticism of the fact that Granahan McCourt is not putting in enough equity. Eir would not commit to putting in any equity at all. We have to take what was said yesterday seriously. The Department has written to Eir looking for clarity on a number of different issues. I hope it will respond quickly enough for the Deputy to get its replies before the committee finishes its deliberations. One key concern of ours is the difference between the €1 billion Eir talked about yesterday and its €2.7 billion bid. We want to understand how that can be explained. We would have concerns if that would involve higher user charges and higher connection costs for people in rural Ireland because one of the key objectives of the national broadband plan is to provide the 500,000 homes, farms and businesses in rural Ireland with broadband without connection charges or fees higher than those paid in urban Ireland. If the difference is being borne by people in rural Ireland, we need to know that and we need to know how much they will be expected to pay under the Eir plan.