Cabinet to meet early to sign off on €3bn broadband plan

The Government is set to sign off on the €3bn National Broadband Plan contract at its weekly meeting tomorrow.

The Cabinet meeting has been brought forward from its usual 10am start time and will start at 7.30am, a move seen as allowing the announcement to be made immediately ahead of markets opening.

Sources speaking to the Irish Examiner confirmed the matter has been listed on the agenda and Communications Minister Richard Bruton is to seek Government approval to proceed with the plan to deliver broadband to rural Ireland.

While a Government spokesman refused to elaborate on details when queries were lodged by the Irish Examiner, it has been made clear that the Cabinet is expected to approve the deal, despite the storm of controversy surrounding it.

The decision to approve the deal comes days after the European Commission granted state aid approval to the National Broadband Plan.

The European approval has cleared the way to allow the contract for the €3bn plan be signed by the Government and National Broadband Ireland, which was awarded the contract for the project in May.

The plan, which aims to bring high-speed internet to more than 540,000 homes, and businesses in rural Ireland, has been engulfed in controversy for several years in light of the withdrawal of several leading bidders. The Granahan McCourt consortium, the sole remaining bidder, was granted preferred bidder status earlier this year.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said over the weekend: “We would be confident that we could sign the contract in the next couple of weeks. The contractor said to us it would take them about a year to deploy but we would expect next year that you would start to see some of the connection hubs around the country being connected.”

Much to the relief of the Government, the commission approved the proposals after assessing the planned measures under EU state aid rules, particularly broadband guidelines dating from 2013.

The Government’s decision to proceed comes despite the repeated pleas from the Department of Public Expenditure secretary-general Robert Watt to pull back from the €3bn broadband plan.