The Government will sign a €3bn contract for the supply of rural broadband later this year after categorically ruling out an offer of a cheaper option for high-speed connections.

The credibility of the Government, elected or permanent, around major projects is not beyond question.

The National Broadband Plan has been thrown into fresh confusion after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Government will consider Eir’s claim it could deliver it for less than €1bn.

The Taoiseach has indicated that the Government could restart the National Broadband Plan (NBP) tender process after Eir claimed they could deliver the high speed network for one third of the current price.

The former state telephone company, Eir, will today claim it could have delivered the Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) for under €1bn, one-third of its estimated final cost.

The consortium developing the State’s multibillion-euro national broadband project has been accused of “bringing nothing” to the plan amid claims a separate company is part-funding its investment.

Timing is everything in politics. There are signs that Fine Gael has got its timing badly wrong again in the run-up to local and European elections, now only nine days away.

Fianna Fáil has claimed the consortium behind the Government's broadband project may be planning to hit households with new charges to fill its own funding gap, before selling the contract onto another firm who will hike prices even further.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has slapped down calls by Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin to use the ESB to roll out high-speed broadband, saying this could be “illegal” and would cause delays for rural Ireland.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the National Development Plan is now "in shreds" and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe can no longer say he will find the extra money for spiralling costs of rural broadband, the national children's hospital and the proposed metro in Dublin.

The Communications Minister has also refused to say how much of the €5bn broadband rollout cost will be footed by rural homeowners and businesses.

Fianna Fáil has hit out at the Government for now spending almost €10bn on three projects that are all billions over budget.

The taxpayer is set to pay twice as much as the private company awarded the National Broadband Plan contract, a report reveals.

The Government should include a clause in any contract allowing the State to take control of the national broadband plan if the firm involved fails to meet its obligations under the 25-year deal.

Businesses and home owners in Ireland’s most rural areas must wait until 2026 to access high-speed broadband — and may have to pay more out of their own pocket.

Finance and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe has overruled his most senior officials to back the €3bn broadband plan in what he deems is “digital fairness” for the whole country.

Families and businesses in the most isolated parts of rural Ireland may have to pay extra fees out of their own pocket under the Government’s €3bn broadband plan.

We have been waiting seven years for it and will be waiting at least seven more for it to be finished.

The Government has agreed a €3bn plan to roll out high-speed broadband to over 540,000 homes and premises in rural Ireland over the next seven years.

There is an onus on the Government to deliver broadband to rural Ireland, ministers have said ahead of Cabinet debating a €3bn plan to roll out a national high-speed network.

The Government has yet to decide whether it will go ahead with the roll-out of the controversial National Broadband Plan (NBP), the finance minister Paschal Donohoe has confirmed.

The National Broadband Plan is set to be approved by the government at a cost of €3bn.

UCC student Barry O’Sullivan may only be 20, but he has no shortage of ambition, bringing together some of the top business leaders in the country for the inaugural Executive Summit next month.

Chief executives from some of the country’s best-known firms have been lined up by an enterprising 20-year-old UCC student to appear at a business leaders forum in April.

Here's your morning bulletin.

The Government’s report into the broadband lobbying fiasco will face immediate “whitewash” claims if it says the project has not been damaged by Denis Naughten’s serial meetings with the only bidder in the process.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin has called for sanctions to be imposed on high-ranking gardaí found to have been involved in repeated attacks on whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe.

Opposition calls that forced the resignations of former Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald and ex-Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan were “bang out of order,” says Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

After a dramatic week the Government will face another challenge to secure a vote to appoint a successor to former minister Denis Naughten.

The Health Minister has strongly defended junior minister Pat Breen over his role in the broadband tender controversy which led to the resignation of Denis Naughten.

How did this all come about?

JUST how long can this farce continue? This is a Government struggling for life and no longer able to guarantee the passage of its legislation.

The Government is on a knife-edge after the resignation of Communications Minister Denis Naughten, with serious doubts over whether it can pass the budget.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten is refusing to resign over revelations that he met three times this year with the only remaining bidder for the State’s lucrative national broadband plan amid growing fears of a snap Christmas election.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten has been accused of “contaminating” the tendering process for the State’s multimillion-euro national broadband contract.

Enet has said it remains committed to the National Broadband Plan project despite one of the consortium’s major players dropping out of the process. Enet is the only bidder for the plan.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten has played down fears for the future of the national broadband plan after one of the last two companies competing for the contract pulled out of the bidding process.

A man whose daughter and Cork-born wife were killed in the 9/11 attacks in New York has died of cancer in the US.