Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:

Operators have coverage obligations and, as Mr. Fahy said, we police them with drive tests four times a year. What we find when we do the drive tests is that they significantly exceed their obligations and that there is coverage for over 90% of the population, which is well in excess of their obligations. The drive tests are based on engineering measurements of signal strength. There is no evidence from the drive tests that the signal strength has got any worse over recent years. We acknowledge, absolutely, that notwithstanding what we see on the signal strength measurements, individual consumers and people who travel along these roads sometimes have a worse experience than they previously had. We ask ourselves why, when the network signal is just as strong as it always was, people have a worse experience. The main reason we can identify is not that the signal strength has got worse but that people are using phones that are less sensitive. As Deputy Moynihan does, I also travel to Cork very often and sometimes experience dropped calls on the journey. The reason is that there will be some black spots along the road. The drive tests we have just published will enable people to identify for the first time precisely which operators have the best coverage on their journeys. The drive tests cover every national primary and secondary route and all of that information is available to help people make decisions.

The Deputy asked what we have done to police the obligations. We check them four times a year and we have not found any lack of compliance with the obligations.