Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is an issue the committee needs to return to because it is a broader one and we do not have the relevant players in front of us, although I will come back to it later. Deputy Ó Cuív is correct about population coverage. Coverage of 70% equates to 322 towns and cities. That is all it is. Three Ireland is on 85%, which is a bit higher than that. Even so, we are ignoring 750,000 people who live in these rural areas and who will not get 5G coverage based on any of these targets. Of course, it is not just about mobile phone coverage. There is the question of emergency services as well. What happens if someone in this national park breaks a leg and has no coverage? The then Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring, and I launched a number of years ago a service with Android phones that allowed for the emergency services to determine geographically where someone was if they had dialled 112 or 999, but that is not going to be feasible once we switch off the 3G service. If Deputy Ó Cuív thinks things are bad at the moment, it is going to get worse when the 3G service is switched off. It is an issue we need to look at.

Will the Department revert to us with a briefing note on coverage in terms of the deployment of 4G, the licensing conditions that are set in that regard, the switch-off of 3G and the implications of that, and the TETRA emergency response service, which is being decommissioned? The taxpayer is going to have to put a new network in place for our ambulances and Garda anyway, which will have to be on a geographical basis, and it would make more sense to piggyback on that. My understanding is that the industry has put forward proposals on this to the Government. We need to bring in industry representatives, the regulator and departmental officials on this, but that is a matter for another meeting. I will flag it. Mr. Mulligan might wish to comment on that.