Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think both parties for their presentations. I was one of the people who was anxious to see a presentation because there is a crisis in our communications systems across the State. This includes mobile broadband and mobile telephony through to fixed-line broadband. While the witnesses have set out their stall and the Department has set out its stall on the difficulty of extending broadband to rural areas, I am not convinced by anything I have heard that it will solve the difficulties. The difficulty with the proposal the Department intends to proceed with, with the backing of State funding, is that although the indication is that it will be scalable, the pace at which the industry is moving suggests the Department will never be in tune with the thinking in terms of development of technology or the rate at which network operators roll out the new systems as they evolve. This is not due to a lack of will on behalf of the Department but concerns about competition and the need to interface and receive permission from Europe. Has any consideration been given to incentivising the industry to provide the coverage we wish to achieve without direct intervention? A standard could be created that must be adhered to, with some tax incentive or other method so that we are in a position to get these companies to achieve the penetration required.

I am disappointed with the ComReg presentation. Of the 17,000 referrals or concerns raised, only 300 relate to mobile telephony and dropping calls. I suspect that is more to do with the fact that people do not know about the existence of ComReg or its role at a consumer level. Are there statistics from network operators on the complaints they receive? This is the first line in any complaint escalated by a consumer.

My experience is that the service has deteriorated very significantly over the past 12 months. One only need go back to the storms of last winter. The experience across rural Ireland was that as a result of these storms there seemed to be a very significant deterioration, which was not resolved or addressed. We all accept that utilities suffer, whether electricity or otherwise, but they manage to get the networks up and running again. I do not think the same level of remediation work went into the cellular side of things. I expect ComReg would have a role in that.

With regard to mobile broadband, does ComReg think the way the State sold access to the radio frequency spectrum acted as a disincentive to companies to achieve the broadest geographical cover? Deputy O'Donovan was very quick to try to suggest that in a previous era the then Government's sale of Eircom had an impact on the roll-out of broadband and the fixed-line business. I would accept that because of the large price paid by the company which bought it. Have we learned nothing from the decisions taken then? We are still selling spectrum for 4G, tempting and all as it might be to take in close to €800 million, but is that effectively spancelling the people who purchase these licences in any attempt to give the greatest geographical spread? Would we be better, in selling spectrum, to demand 100% geographical cover in return for the licence to operate rather than eliminating a portion of the geographical area, concentrating on population and taking a once-off windfall payment which, sadly, will get spent? We will then have large tracts of rural Ireland with no access to mobile broadband and poor mobile phone coverage.