Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Deputy Michael Moynihan, who recently assumed the position of spokesman for his party in this area. I can tell Deputy Moynihan and Deputy Brian Walsh that we will have new statistics in coming days for the end of September and will be able to measure how far things have progressed, and again on 10 October. We will have a close handle on the speed of uptake. That is not to deny that we will have latecomers or that some people will be left behind. That is human nature and we are conscious of that. That is why we are putting so much into alerting people to understand what is involved. We are not going to go out of business on 24 October; we must follow up on the situation immediately after the switchover.

Deputy Moynihan's suggestion about An Post is a good one that we should consider. In reply to Deputy O'Donovan, Saorview has been conscious from the beginning that its brand will be used as a means for people interested in subterfuge to gain admission to the homes of vulnerable people in particular. Great pains have been taken to ensure that does not happen in so far as it is within our control. Ms Curtis might want to give some examples of that.

On the net point outlined by the Chairman of the difficulties involved for the 2%, I say to Deputy Healy-Rae that this is not the first time people sitting around this table have become aware of this; the technical challenges have been there since the start. RTE is to be commended on the substantial investment it has put into the roll-out of the digital network and it has responded to claims from particular Deputies who have highlighted where for topographical and other reasons there are particular difficulties. We have taken that seriously. The existing signal never reached 100% of the country.

I take the point being made by the Deputies for south Kerry and west Cork that the figure of 2% is not dispersed equally across the country. It could well be the case that 100% of the members of a small local community have no reception. I can assure Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, knowing his county very well, that the last thing I want to do is to deprive his constituents of the opportunity to see either replays of himself or his work on their behalf in the Dáil. The objective is the opposite. People should have access to the station's programmes. We have put a great deal of work into that issue; in particular, RTE and Saorview have put a lot of work into it.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae also makes the point that we did not send an engineer around the country, which is not entirely correct. In many cases, engineers concerned with this problem have been around the country. It is acknowledged in the case of County Cork that visible solutions have been suggested to protect against this problem. I heard what Senator Paschal Mooney had to say about the Nire valley, about which he had spoken to me privately. It would be best to ask Mr. Keogh to comment on the technical difficulties that have been encountered in parts of the country and how we propose to respond to them.