State going ahead with broadband strategy
A crisis has hit the rural broadband plan after Eir, one of the two tenderers for the project, withdrew this week. Homes and businesses desperate for high-speed internet are angry at the withdrawal.
In the Dáil yesterday, Tánaiste Simon Coveney was forced to defend the plan to connect more than half a million premises with only one bidder, Enet, left in the running for the massive broadband deal.
Fianna Fáil communications spokesman Timmy Dooley asked whether it was time for the State to take back control of the project and questioned the value for money if just one company was left in the competition.
The Opposition TD also questioned what plans the Communications Minister Denis Naughten had in place following Eir’s withdrawal.
“I, too, grew up on a farm and I know that if one goes to a market with a bullock and there is only one person there to buy it, one will take the price the person wants to offer,” said Mr Dooley. “The Tánaiste is now suggesting that the Government now somehow has the upper hand. It is at the market and there is only one person there. Its back is to the wall.
“If it thinks it will be able to achieve the deadline which the Minister, Deputy Naughten, keeps avoiding questions on or that somehow it will get value for money for the taxpayer, it needs to wake up because it is not going to happen.”
Mr Coveney said the plan has been through a complex tendering process it is expected that the contract would be concluded by September.
The project, under the current plan to get broadband into isolated areas nationwide, is going ahead, insisted Mr Coveney.
“The idea that we should at this stage, because one operator has pulled out and we have another operator confirming that it wants to get on and do the business, stall the whole process and ask for another panel of experts to make recommendations would mean that nothing would happen for probably years and we would be starting all over again,” said Mr Coveney.
“The minister has an assurance that, actually, we are almost where we need to be in terms of spending hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers’ money to make sure that rural Ireland gets the broadband that it needs.”
However, his defence was criticised by Mr Dooley, who said: “What cyber galaxy is Minister Naughten living in? There’s no guarantee at all if a deal can be arrived at. You put your faith in the market and the market has turned its back on you.”
Eir is blaming the Government for its decision to withdraw its contract bid.
CEO, Richard Moat, says the process was too complicated and the Government was paying too little.
“We anticipated that we would be able to charge those prices which had been set by the regulator.
“There was an indication by the department that they would be looking for discounts, potentially significant discounts on those prices.”
