Failure to connect: How has the National Broadband Plan crashed so badly? 

We're left with a plan on which €132m has been spent to date, which will eventually cost €3bn, and which risks being so tardy that the separate infrastructure being put in place by commercial operators, some of whom had dropped out of the NBP bidding process itself, may end up superseding it

Just 27,000 premises have been rendered in a position to join the NBP network to date. For context, the previously-stated target figure for the end of 2021 was 115,000. File picture

You can’t digest the latest twist in the seemingly never-ending saga that is the National Broadband Plan effectively without first considering the inept series of circumstances which made up how it came to be in the first place.

Prior to the Department of Communications appearing before the Public Accounts Committee to discuss the plan on Thursday, it had emerged that just 27,000 premises have been rendered in a position to join the NBP network to date. For context, the previously-stated target figure for the end of 2021 was 115,000.