Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the commissioner, Ms Dixon. We are delighted to have her before the committee on this occasion. I recognise and thank her for the work she did as Data Protection Commissioner. She comes to this new role with a considerable amount of experience as a public servant, and we look forward to working with her, as the Oireachtas did in her previous role. From Ms Dixon's short time with ComReg I want to understand if she believes the powers and sanctions available to her are adequate. From the perspective of the Oireachtas, is there anything we should be looking at in terms of legislative change or increasing fines? She made reference to Eir's €7,500 fine. There may be some multiples of that per charge and it covered ComReg's costs. It seems a relatively small amount of money. I do not want to stray into how the judge interpreted the case because that is not our role. However, are the sanctions available adequate to ensure these large companies are brought to heel when they transgress clearly the lines set? That is my first question. I am asking for any broad analysis she may have.

Second, a number of issues have arisen recently and have been raised with me relating to cellphone providers and the service they provide. They widely advertise the extent of their coverage and oftentimes they reference, with a map of Ireland, percentages of what they cover. When you drill below it, it is population rather than geographic coverage even though the particular advertisement might give the impression that it is the island of Ireland. Apart from that, there is something else I and others have noted and reflected on. For those of us who traverse rural parts of the country there seems to be a reduction and a poorer quality of coverage. I have raised this with a number of the providers and the standard answer is that it must be the handset. In many cases the handsets have not changed. I know they are not like the older phones with the aerials and so on, but over the past six months there has been a considerable increase in the level of dropped calls and poor coverage. The belief that moving towards 5G meant that we would have better data coverage does not seem to stack up once you move outside the large urban areas. Any thoughts or insight on that would be useful.