Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Has Mr. Griffin any idea? Can somebody, between the Department and RTÉ, send us a note next week on when we can see RTÉ 2 plus one? I keep insisting RTÉ is losing revenue by not having the station. That is one of the reasons I raised it. They voiced much complaint about television licence evasion and here is an opportunity to raise money themselves. In my view, somebody was slow off the mark on it.

Before I return to broadband, what of mobile phone coverage? There are wonderful maps of plans of 100% mobile phone coverage. I do not have mobile phone coverage in my office. Nobody in my village has proper mobile phone coverage. I have tabled PQs all year. I have looked at the Department's reports. The Department is engaging with local authorities on a pilot basis to identify black spots. That job would take approximately one hour in every county. If one sat down at a public meeting of the local authority, there is no councillor who could not list them to Mr. Griffin off the top of his or her head. That job should have taken a day to complete. It could have been done as an agenda item on every local authority meeting to list the black spots but the Department set up a lengthy process. The Department appointed officers and they are conducting a pilot study identifying the black spots in 17 local authorities. That will inform the future plan to identify more black spots, and how one does it scientifically. All I will say is doing the job this way is not doing the public service any good. Who is the regulator for the mobile phones?