After much delay, and at six times the original cost, it is reported that the Government is preparing to sign off on the national broadband plan, NBP, shortly. It is 20 years since a Fianna Fáil-led Government sold off the Telecom Éireann network, which we now all agree was a mistake. It still has consequences today because the State, through the NBP, will now have to pay to lease the existing infrastructure of ducts and poles which we once owned as a people. The Government, following in Fianna Fáil's footsteps, is going to pay €3 billion to a private investment fund, headed by Granahan McCourt, for a broadband network the taxpayer will never own, despite a formal resolution sponsored by my party and overwhelmingly carried in this House only a short couple of weeks ago.

We have also learned that the same preferred bidder, Granahan McCourt, is also bidding for Northern Ireland's Project Stratum at an expected cost of €1,900 per home. The Government is planning to sign off on a deal that will cost €5,000 per home in this jurisdiction while the same product, by the same bidder and on the same island, will cost €1,900 in Northern Ireland. How did the Government manage to preside over a contract negotiation that has allowed the same company to provide the same product at less than half the price in Derry than in Donegal?

It is important to put this contract in context. Without the project, 25% of our population in rural Ireland will be without access to broadband.

I am talking about the cost.

I can see no prospect of rural prosperity being delivered without access to high-speed broadband.

The Government has given no regard to the cost.

That is not what I said. I will answer the Deputy if he stops interrupting and gives me a chance to do so. We have entered into a 25-year contract to design, build and operate this service, which will cost €2.1 billion, plus a contingency of €480 million and a VAT payment which will be recouped by the State. The Labour Party's Minister considered the options at the time and State ownership of this asset and running it as a State body, which the Deputy is now advocating, was ruled out at that time by that Minister.

It was not.

The gap-funded model was left on the table, as was a model which would grant a 25-year contract with reversion to the State. According to best financial and operating advice, a choice was made that the gap-funded model was the preferable option.

The Minister should stick to the question I asked.

Northern Ireland is now commencing a broadband bidding process. No bids have been entered by any tenderer. Northern Ireland has simply indicated the approximate scale of the-----

Give them a bonus.

-----operation it intends to develop. No bids have been made by any of the bodies or prospective contractors concerned.

Is the Government going to sign a contract in those circumstances?