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McMahon Design and Management Limited (MDM), a Galway-based subsea-cable engineering firm founded in 1990, is the developer/coordinator of the PISCES system — a submarine fibre-optic cable connecting Ireland's west coast to Sines (Portugal), with branches to Bilbao (Spain) and the French coast, totalling roughly 2,100-3,000km depending on the branch configuration counted. The project has been funded across multiple CEF Digital tranches (an earlier ~EUR 8m study-phase grant, a later ~EUR 29m works grant, and now this EUR 18.9m phase-3 award), reflecting the EU's standard staged approach to co-financing capital-intensive submarine infrastructure through CINEA/HaDEA-administered Connecting Europe Facility calls.
The European Commission's own digital-strategy communications team has featured PISCES and MDM founder Tom McMahon directly as a case study for why EU co-funding matters for subsea cable buildout — citing high vessel scarcity, competition for seabed space with offshore wind and pipelines, and ~3-year project timelines as reasons private capital alone under- invests in this asset class. This is emblematic of the EU's post-2024 subsea-cable resilience push (see the EU Cable Security Action Plan, 2025-02-21) following Baltic Sea cable-sabotage incidents, treating Ireland's near-total dependence on UK/France cable landings as a strategic vulnerability.
entirely routed via the UK and France) by opening direct Iberian Peninsula and French landing points.
diversification pattern (parallel awards to other national projects under the same 4th CEF Digital call for submarine cables).
EU commitment to PISCES exceeding EUR 45-48m across phases — illustrates how EU state-aid-style connectivity subsidies are disbursed in stages tied to project milestones rather than as single lump grants.
(press figures cited range from ~EUR 37m to ~EUR 48m depending on source and date) — could not be reconciled to a single official HaDEA results table via public search.
tranche was not locatable via public search (only the GTA state-act page and EC digital-strategy feature article); if a direct HaDEA award notice surfaces later it should be added as an additional primary source.