Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It was looked at and we did have a discussion. It was one of the options we looked at. One of the issues that emerged in the consideration of all of this is the cost involved and the fact a portion of Eir changed ownership, and the cost of that was in the many billions of euro when it happened. We would then face the challenge that we would have looked to acquire Eir, which would mean we would have spent a significant amount of the State's money acquiring a network for those who already have coverage, which would then have led to the next question regarding what we are going to do to expand that coverage, which cuts into the debate we are having here now.