In a recent report, the Oireachtas Communications Committee recommends that the ESB deliver broadband and criticises the Government’s flawed tendering process, as well as their refusal to examine alternative delivery options. The Government must now accept their plan is finished and adopt a new approach.
The report is the culmination of scores of expert witnesses giving their opinion on how best to deliver high speed broadband. This new approach is needed because the one taken by the Government to date has failed completely. Fine Gael had claimed that their plan would deliver high speed broadband along with reduced State risk, increased competition and value for money for the taxpayer. It is obvious that it has failed on all three counts, so far.
There are clear advantages to having the ESB step in. It is a company with a proven track record in delivering communications projects. The major benefit is that the actual infrastructure would remain in State hands. The disastrous mistake by Fianna Fáil was to sell off our telecommunications infrastructure to be asset stripped.
The committee strongly agreed that as it stands, the State is actually carrying almost all of the risk in this project. The State is investing €3 billion in contrast to the €220 million put forward by the private operator.
Fine Gael cannot be trusted with public money because it simply does not learn from previous mistakes. After the National Children’s Hospital debacle and the Public Services Card there is still no change in this Government’s approach to spending large amounts of public money.
