Mr. Garrett Blaney:

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach agus leis na comhaltaí uilig as an gcuireadh teacht ina láthair inniu. I thank the Chair and members for the invitation to appear before the committee today.

I have been a ComReg commissioner since January 2019 and I am the current chairperson. I am joined by my colleagues Ms Barbara Delaney, director of the retail and consumer services division, Mr. George Merrigan, director of the market framework division, and Mr. Donal Leavy, director of the wholesale division. We have supplied the committee with three documents. These are our current strategy statement, a note on developments in the communications market and an information note on measures taken by us following Storm Éowyn to address future severe weather events.

ComReg was established in 2002. We are the national regulatory authority for electronic communications services and networks, postal services and radio spectrum. Broadly speaking, we have three core objectives. We promote market competition that leads to investment, innovation and choice through competition. We promote and protect the interests of consumers. We also contribute to the development of the EU's internal market. I will give a little bit more information on our key objectives.

First, there is connectivity, competition and investment. Connectivity is a core element of electronic communications. ComReg aims to ensure that competition drives innovation so that customers get a greater choice of services. We also manage Ireland’s radio spectrum so that it supports a wide range of communication services for consumers and businesses.

Next is consumer protection and empowerment. Our aim is to protect and empower consumers so that they can choose communications services with confidence. We inform consumers of their rights about new technologies and how best to protect themselves. Through online tools and apps on our website, we also provide information on market offers, mobile coverage and the availability of broadband services. We assist consumers in their dealings with service providers. Between July 2024 and June 2025, we received approximately 32,000 contacts from consumers, of which 10% were complaints. We engage with service providers, where necessary, to resolve consumer complaints and we take appropriate enforcement action, where required. Those consumer-related enforcement actions have led to millions of euros in fines and refunds to consumers. Where we consider that consumers need further protections, we introduce new rules. For example, we have a customer charter and codes of practice for complaint handling and for compensation. We ensure the provision of the necessary universal postal service and the universal electronic communications services and we monitor the quality of the national emergency call answering service.

On cybersecurity and resilience, we monitor cybersecurity and resilience requirements for entities in the sectors within our scope. We do so within our powers under the second network and information systems directive, called NIS2, when it is transposed into Irish law. Our work in monitoring the resilience and integrity of telecommunications networks includes reporting on network incidents. We are also Ireland’s market surveillance authority for the radio equipment directive and our product safety unit works to ensure that all electronic products sold in Ireland with a radio component are legal and safe.

I would like to make the committee aware of a range of new functions that are being assigned to ComReg under EU and domestic legislation. The following are some of our key new responsibilities. NIS2 strengthens cybersecurity requirements across many critical sectors. We have responsibility for four sectors, which are digital infrastructure, ICT service management, the digital providers and space. Under the principle of main establishment, entities that operate in multiple member states fall under Irish jurisdiction if they register their main establishment in Ireland. We will be required to supervise these entities in relation to services they provide in other member states as well as Ireland, to include taking enforcement action, if required. This increases the scale and complexity of our supervision and enforcement function from national to EU-wide.

The EU critical entities resilience directive, CER, focuses on ensuring that the physical and operational resilience of critical entities in the digital infrastructure sector, including telecom networks.

Regulated entities must identify and address risks, whether from naturally occurring hazards or from deliberate sabotage.

The EU Data Act establishes rules on fair access to, and use of, data. We will be designated as the competent authority for the switching and interoperability of data processing services delivered through cloud services. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act is the first EU-wide framework for the safe and trustworthy use of AI. ComReg has been designated as a national competent authority. We will have responsibility for products covered by the radio equipment directive and in respect of critical digital infrastructure, preparations for which have commenced.

These new responsibilities will bring additional challenges for ComReg. We will be active in new sectors with new stakeholders, not only in Ireland but across Europe. We will, of course, need additional resources and extra staff to carry out these new functions.

In conclusion, the loss of broadband during Storm Éowyn last January again highlighted how essential connectivity has become to our lives. We have been working with the Government and industry to learn from that event, and we have put in place measures to mitigate the impact of such extreme weather events when they occur in the future. I refer to the information notice that we published recently, entitled “Severe Weather Events - ComReg’s Measures”, and we would be happy to speak to its content.

ComReg is a member of the telecommunications resilience and response group, TRRG, which is led by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport. The purpose of the TRRG is to promote resilience and high availability of our telecommunications infrastructure and to provide a co-ordinated sectoral emergency response capability.

We also engaged at length with Telecommunications Industry Ireland. As a result of those meetings, our incident reporting portal has been overhauled and moved to a new platform. During severe weather events, telecom service providers report to ComReg and ComReg, in turn, reports to the national emergency co-ordination group. We will be consulting on possible improvements to that reporting process.

We have also created a webpage, comreg.ie/severeweather, to inform consumers on how severe weather can impact communications services, actions they can take to prepare and what they can do during any service outages or disruptions. Our consumer care team also has an escalation process to help expedite service restoration. We are also reviewing service providers’ current practices in communicating with their customers in relation to service outages. We will engage further with service providers regarding their plans to provide their customers with alternative connections during outages, such as mobile broadband modems or connection hubs in public areas.

We have ensured that over €1.08 million has been refunded to customers who lost service during the Storm Éowyn, and we will ensure that people who suffered prolonged outages will get refunds or service credits. We have worked with the industry to identify priority sites for mobile communications. This list of locations is being revised and will be finalised with the Department.

The resilience of this infrastructure is essential for our society and economy. Now that high-speed networks are in place, the challenge is to keep them running. Those networks must also be as secure and resilient as possible in the face of external threats. We will do what we can to ensure the country stays connected.