Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This meeting was called so that the good gentlemen opposite could deal with issues relating to mobile phone and broadband coverage throughout the State. Am I correct in saying that? With the greatest respect to the gentlemen, what I have heard for the last hour is the greatest balderdash I have heard at an Oireachtas committee for quite some time. There is no mobile phone coverage in 45% of the State, whether it is the iPhone, the technology or broadband services. I doubt one would get a 90% satisfaction rate if one asked people on O'Connell Street, not to mind if one asked people in Cork, Leitrim, Roscommon, Clare, Meath, Limerick or any of the other places represented by the members of the committee. There is a savage crisis out there.

With the greatest of respect, I ask that the meeting be suspended and that the witnesses go back to get the correct information and not the balderdash that has been put before us for the last half an hour. We do not have mobile phone coverage. The figure of 5,500 km was mentioned. I travel between here and north Cork on a weekly basis and can tell the witnesses all the places on that journey that have no mobile phone coverage. The places that had no mobile phone coverage in 1997 are exactly the same places that have no mobile phone coverage now. The technology has increased no end. If ComReg is charged as the consumer authority and watchdog to protect the consumer, may heaven help us. It is disgraceful what has been put before us. We should suspend and allow the gentlemen opposite to come back with the facts and to address what was supposed to be the content of this meeting.