Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 October 2018
105. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Finance if he and-or his departmental officials have met a person (details supplied) and-or representatives of companies in the past two years; if so, if he will publish a schedule of those meetings and the associated minutes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42821/18]
View answerMy predecessor as Minister for Finance met with representatives from Enet in the Department of Finance on Wednesday 14 December 2016. The meeting was at the request of Enet as a business based in his constituency. The meeting was also attended by officials from the Department.
The reasons Enet gave for the meeting was to brief the then Minister on the following issues:
- significant revenue growth since establishment in 2000;
- Enet's management, maintenance and operation of a fully integrated fibre infrastructure, comprising of 94 State owned Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), providing interurban services to towns, as well as other privately owned metro fibre rings in locations such as Dublin, Shannon and Castlebar; and
- Enet's significant growth plans.
The scheduled attendees on behalf of Enet were:
- Conal Henry – CEO Enet
- Niall Beirne – Head of Communications Enet
- Eoghan Ó Neachtain – Heneghan PR (advisors to Enet)
The record of the meeting sets out that:
- it was made clear at the outset that there could be no discussion of the National Broadband Plan tendering process; and
- the discussion was in lines with the issues flagged by Enet in advance.
