The National Broadband plan needs to be stopped. The bidding process was compromised by Naughty Naughten’s dinner parties and the opposition are questioning if this contract represents good value for the taxpayer. MEP Matt Carty has even suggested that this plan is an example of FG posh boys spending taxpayers money like they’re still playing with their parent’s credit cards.

The Government might have their advisors but we the people also have ours. David McWilliams recently tweeted:

“One bidder, astronomical cost, no competition, Dept of Fin against it, yet State forks out €3billion weeks before election & will give asset back to consortium who it paid to build it. This is Children's hospital territory. Fianna Fail gotta to pull plug!”

Meanwhile Irish entrepreneur Paddy Cosgrave (co-founder of Web Summit) tweets:

“Last night I talked to one of Goldman Sachs finest ever telecoms bankers. He felt Ireland’s broadband tendering process was “made to order”. In other words it was shaped from the start by a single bidder for that single bidder to win.”

But it doesn’t end there, three journalists from the Irish Times worked on an article called “Broadband Cost Set To Top €5bn Including Private Investment”. The journalists, Eoin Burke Kennedy, Pat Leahy, and Jennifer Bray reveal that Department of Public Expenditure officials have suggested the State was investing most of the money and assuming most of the risk, while a private company would garner many of the benefits.

The private company will even have an opportunity to sell the assets at a future date for a profit. No one is denying that the country needs better broadband but this package is the equivalent of selling the family jewellery for a lift to town and a few squandered drinks. We need to think about how we attract more competition in the future also and not hand a state asset over to a monopoly.

We need to pull the plug on Fraudband and this poorly planned project. Jenga Government won't get away with this move. 

Picture by Harry Burton (@HBtoons)