Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her gracious words. I look forward to being as helpful in my new role as I hope I was able to be in my previous role. I take the points she has made on the basis of her experience and contact with her constituents, particular older people who sometimes find it difficult to change from a landline to a mobile telephone. It is a challenge for people who are used to the simpler technology of the landline to switch to a mobile phone. I also take the Deputy's point that the newer mobile phone formats are not as easily adaptable to the monitoring of pendants. This interesting and fair point had not occurred to me.

I want to respond to the Deputy's reasonable point in respect of the need to advertise or promote the TalkTime product and similar products that are made available. There is little point to having such a service unless people know that it exists. I am sure everybody would agree with that, and I believe Eircom would agree with that also. The challenge is to ensure that where services are tailored to particular needs they should be promoted, and one would hope they would be promoted. I agree with the Deputy in that regard. I thank the Deputy for raising the issue and if she has any additional aspects to what we have discussed that she wants to raise with me arising from my reply, I would be happy to address those.

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