Mr. Kevin O'Brien:

I shall take those questions in the order in which they were asked. On the point made by Deputy Harrington, the universal service regime for telecommunications is not changing and there is no ditching of any element of it. That regime, set out in European law and implemented by ComREG in Ireland, results in the designation of Eircom as the provider of fixed-line telephone services for everyone at the same price, regardless of location. I can assure the Deputy that there is no change at all in that regard. What we were discussing was the price of certain wholesale products in the context of Eircom launching its new, next-generation service. The company sells wholesale products to other telecommunications operators and needs to sell them at a price that allows the other operators to resell them and still make an acceptable return. That is where the change has happened - in the wholesale rather than the retail price. Nothing at all has changed with regard to universal service provision for telecommunications.