Roll-out of broadband plan ‘risky’ but right thing to do, says Donohoe

The Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, has said the roll-out of the national broadband plan will be "risky" and without precedent as he defended his decision to proceed with the plan despite a series of warnings from senior officials.

Mr Donohoe also denied that any future capital projects such as roads or primary care centres would be delayed because of the decision, even though documents released on Wednesday detailed a number of projects which could be halted.

He said going ahead with the project is one of the “very biggest” decisions the Government will make in its tenure.

“Rolling out a form of technology like this to a million of our citizens who live across the length and breadth of our country is an inherently risky and an inherently complex activity. If it was neither, the private sector would already have delivered this, this would already be happening. So there is risk, there is complexity in all of this.”

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He said he believed “on balance this is the right thing for us to do”.

‘Valuable objective’

“I think given the scale of this technology and the number of citizens who will be affected by it, it would be difficult to find another precedent for a decision like this because rolling out fibre-optic technology to a million citizens is a really, really demanding but valuable objective to try to deliver.”

Documents released by the Government on Wednesday show that the Department of Public Expenditure strongly recommended to Government that it not proceed with the preferred bidder for plan.

“Well, I received lots of different advice in relation to this both inside my own department and across all of Government, but the department speaks with one voice when they make recommendations for a minister,” Mr Donohoe said.

The documents also contain warnings that a number of projects could be delayed as a result of extra capital funding being spent on broadband. These include the delivery of more than 2,000 social housing units, as well as 18 primary schools and nine to 10 primary healthcare centres.

Mr Donohoe said no projects would be affected.

I believe it is the right thing to still try to deliver 100 per cent coverage

“If we look at where we are from a current expenditure growth point of view, if this Government and whoever the next government is, whenever that happens, can maintain current expenditure growth in the way that has happened over the last number of years, the ability is there to deliver additional capital funding for the national broadband plan.”

Coverage

The Minister also said the Government stands by its decision to offer 100 per cent coverage across the country.

“I believe it is the right thing to still try to deliver 100 per cent coverage. The reason why I believe it’s the right thing to do is that we would then be moving forward with a national process and deciding who we were going to leave out. It would mean leaving significant portions of our country out.”

In terms of the governance of the project, Mr Donohoe said he was “satisfied getting up to this point” that the risks are “well understood by Government”.

“I took a lot of time to compare the learnings that I had from the national children’s hospital process to where we are now,” he said, adding that he will be working on governance arrangements in the coming months.