The national broadband plan, which aims to provide high-speed internet for more than half a million homes, farms, and businesses in rural Ireland, is due to be reviewed by the Irish government on Tuesday, May 7.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that 100,000 km of fiber would need to be laid and the project could cost up to 3 billion euros over 25 years.

“Without government intervention, approximately 540,000 homes, farms and enterprises will not have access to high-speed broadband,” the prime minister said.

However, the tender process, in which only one bidder remained - the Granahan McCourt Capital consortium - was called into question by opposition parties and officials of the Department of Public Expenditures. They expressed a number of reservations in the discussions.

The leader of Fianna Fáil, the Republican and essentially conservative party of Ireland, Michael Martin stated: “The government proposes that the relevant consortium receive 3 billion euros from taxpayers for the construction and management, as well as for the final ownership of the entire network, and also receive along the way from this profit. ”