Mr. Kevin O'Brien:

Deputy McEntee also raised some mobile phone coverage issues. Our mandate is all about the consumer. We speak about investment, innovation and networks but we make such considerations in terms of what they mean for the consumer. That is fundamentally what we are about. The Deputy made a good point regarding planning and infrastructure, which networks need, and there is no easy way to get away from that. Different local authorities have taken different approaches at different times, which has an impact on infrastructure roll-out.

The Deputy mentioned advertising, and the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland deals with any misleading or false advertising. We have worked with closely with the authority in the past, particularly with regard to the broadband speeds message. For example, the authority has insisted at different stages that operators should introduce phrases like "up to" when referring to speed and so on. We are not the relevant authority for advertising but we have loaned some of our technical knowledge to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland to help in its work.