The Minister for Communications Richard Bruton has said tweets sent by the programme director for the National Broadband Plan (NBP) "should not have happened and will not happen in the future".
He was responding to questions from Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley and Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy in the Dáil tonight during statements on the recent report of Peter Smyth into the procurement process audit of the plan.
Deputy Dooley noted that the programme directer tweeted in response to a Sunday Business Post article that: "A decision on the only game in town will hopefully be made in the next couple of weeks. A lot of theoretical nonsense. These guys have no understanding of telecoms market which is very complex, as you know, and we have just dropped nearly €20m getting the best advice possible from some of the people that do understand telecoms."
He questioned if the Minister believes it is appropriate for the programme director to engage in this kind of communication at this stage in the process.
Minister Bruton acknowledged that tweets occurred that were attributed to the director of the programme and "they should not have happened and will not happen in the future".
He added all future engagement with the media will be managed by the press office.
He said: "I would say that that the individual concerned has been very passionate and energetic to try and deliver and develop this project."
Tonight, the former Minister for Communications Denis Naughten raised concerns about the future of the broadband plan.
He said: "There has been a theme emerging in recent months of innuendo and aspersions" where the capability of the remaining bidder to deliver has been brought into question.
"That is not for us to determine. That is the job of the 80-strong evaluation team. But we have to ask, what is driving this narrative and for what gain? To collapse the plan altogether perhaps? IT may actually have that desired effect which will cause more heartache for the 1.2 million people in rural Ireland," said Mr Naughten.
He appealed to TDs to let the evaluation team do their job.
Mr Bruton said it is his priority that the procurement process for the National Broadband Plan is brought to a conclusion in "a fair and transparent manner" within the coming weeks.
Mr Bruton said: "We will be close to 75% having access to commercial broadband. The challenge of course is that the remaining 23%, which will be in the intervention, covers nearly 96% of the land area so it is a challenging task to ensure that get this equality of opportunity to which the Government is extremely committed."
Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley also said his concern is the motivation of the bidder during his "rather unusual" engagements with the former Minister Denis Naughten.
Mr Dooley pointed out that the communication protocol between the Department of Communications and bidders prohibits canvassing by bidders.
He said that any breach of this protocol would entitle the department to immediately disqualify that bidder.
He questioned if the sole remaining bidder has clearly breached the canvassing rules.
He said that one of these meetings took place in Mr McCourt's home while the two previous bidders were still in the race, then he does not understand how Mr Smyth's report did not highlight that.
Minister Bruton indicated that meetings that were not minuted gave cause for concern.
Sinn Féin's communications spokesperson Brian Stanley said it is very clear that there wasn't any intent in terms of personal gain but it does show how easy it is for big business and Government ministers to meet.
He said the meetings show that there was a certain amount of panic among department officials and Government.
He expressed concerns that the State and taxpayers are left open to a legal challenge in the future.
Labour TD Sean Sherlock asked how much the broadband plan will cost the taxpayer but Mr Bruton said no decision has been made on the proposal by the Government yet.
He said that until the evaluation process is completed, he will not have a final figure for the cost.
