Broadband plan a fiasco says TD
Decision to privatise is the issue not a New York Dinner says Brid Smith TD
People Before Profit TD Brid Smith has said the latest controversy over the National Broadband plan should not distract attention away from the real disaster unfolding. Deputy Smith said the meeting between the head of the only remaining bidder for the state contract worth up to €1 billion and the Communication Minster Dennis Naughton at a New York dinner is just the latest in a serious of “deeply troubling ” events that will result in huge costs to the state and the ongoing delay of the unrolling of the Broadband plan. She added: “all of this originates in the decision to privatise the plan, to tender it out to private companies via competitive tendering and to insist that the state will not own and control the service in anyway.”
The Deputy claims this decision lies at the heart of the delays and costs increases.
“We are two years down the road, company after company have dropped out leaving just one bidder, not a single household out of the 500,000 awaiting broadband are any nearer getting it, and it will now costs up to €1 billion. Remember the justification for this was the efficiency and professionalism of the private sector would save us money.This is a farce. We now find out that the one remaining bidder also involves a Dennis OBrien company. At a time when this company is the subject of a investigation by the state into its sale by the IBRC it is beyond belief that we can hand over a billion euro contract to it!”
“The entire process has been a farce, we need a state company to build and maintain the national broadband infrastructure,we need to reverse the Fianna Fail decision to privatise the states national Telecoms company.”
