Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our witnesses. In some ways, the witnesses and members on opposite sides of the room have similar jobs. Members face people at election time, they vote for us and they do not really know how good we are until they need us. It is the same with Eir. People sign up to Eir and become its customers but the real litmus test is when something goes wrong with network, their billing or something else and they phone Eir's call centre. Politicians get in trouble if we drop the ball and miss a constituency issue. Eir is dealing with that multiplied several times over. To have ComReg on its back, to be referenced on "Prime Time" and to be here today before an Oireachtas committee, all in the space of one week, is hugely embarrassing for Eir. This is not personal. This is about a company - corporate Eir - in front of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications Networks effectively being hauled over hot coals for letting down its customer base in Ireland. It is embarrassing. I have only been in the Dáil since February. This is a first for me. I have never seen this. We have dealt with trade unions and airlines as we try to get planes back in the sky and discuss transport networks but here we see a company that has let down its customer base. Whether someone is in politics and lets down his or her constituents or in telecommunications and lets down customers, it is an unforgivable error that needs to be addressed.

In the past 12 months, I had to call Eir out twice on Twitter to get it to respond to me on an essential issue for a constituent. This is also unforgivable. I think it took a few days before I realised that I was not talking to Eir but a chatbot on Twitter. It was not a real person. The same names featured twice so Eir is either paying two people to run its Twitter account, which I doubt, or it is using chatbots. Like the Chairman, on some days, I probably waited 30, 40 or 50 minutes. Recently, I was on a call to Eir on my way to the Dáil, which sometimes sits in the national convention centre. When Eir eventually answered after about 50 minutes, I was going down the hill into the underground car park, and all members of the committee can relate to this, when the line cut out after Eir's representative answered because I had gone into an underground car park. I nearly tore out what little hair is left on my head because it was utterly frustrating. Try dealing with that several times a week. It is infuriating.

I also find it incredible that on 26 March, the then Taoiseach declared not just the workers in Eir but all workers in telecommunications to be essential workers who had certain privileges in terms of showing up in the workplace, being able to work and not having their work discontinued. I find it incredible that this was the same month that Eir lost just under one fifth of its call centre workers and it took it almost until the last few weeks of this year to start to replenish them. I get emails on Monday morning, and I am sure other Deputies and Senators here can testify to this, from people asking whether there are any jobs and telling me that their husbands or wives have lost their jobs. I find it incredible that Eir lost 80 employees who have been deemed essential workers and did well-paid work. The salary may be questionable but that is for these workers and Eir to work out in contract terms. To have lost 80 workers and to have waited months to replace them, I find incredible.

I would like to hear more about Eir's customer care service. I know Ms Lennon referred to Eir's call centres in Ireland and we know where they are located. Does a call centre still operate outside Ireland?