Mr. Kevin O'Brien:

I will respond to the four points made and maybe try to take some of the common issues together. Deputy Dooley referred to complaints to ComReg. We certainly take complaints seriously. The fact that the figure is 300 out of 17,000 is not in any way to downgrade those complaints, but it gives a sense of the number of issues consumers face and where this fits within that. We follow up on all of those complaints.

We engage in a significant amount of outreach activity. By going to libraries, having an online presence, using Twitter and having community-level engagement, we try to make people aware of ComReg and what we do. The more we can do in that regard, the better.

Deputy Dooley mentioned how the State sells spectrum. ComReg's spectrum manager is tasked with that. There are very detailed European laws around the allocation of spectrum and how it is done. I refer back to the 2012 option. While the amount raised for the Exchequer was in the region of €850 million, that mainly reflected a competitive option whereby operators bid against each other. The reserve prices would have raised approximately half of that figure. The auction was designed to ensure a competitive outcome, that there would be no distortion in the marketplace on foot of the auction and that operators would be equipped with spectrum to compete with each other. Pricing was, in some ways, a mechanism to sort out who felt they would most use the spectrum in providing a service to consumers. I suppose the Deputy contrasted that with other countries which have very significant or onerous coverage obligations rather than running an auction. The one example often pointed to is that of the UK. It had one operator with, I think, a 97% coverage obligation in its recent auction, again bearing in mind that its population density is four times that of this country. What happened in the UK was that operator did not pay. The UK Government paid that operator to take on the spectrum with that coverage obligation. There are different choices here in terms of State intervention and whether one wants to pay for coverage levels versus allowing for a competitive marketplace.

I turn to the points Deputy Harrington made which were relevant to ComReg. He mentioned the notion of a public service obligation. Under the framework, there is really only one thing I would compare with a public service obligation, and that is what we call a universal service obligation, which guarantees a fixed line to every household in Ireland and guarantees that fixed line at the same national price.

The European framework considers broadband and mobile services as deliverable by the competitive marketplace. The situation with mobile, therefore, is that the regulator is charged with managing the spectrum and making the marketplace competitive, but it is up to the operators themselves to compete on price, coverage and so forth. Hearing from the operators about the challenges they face in getting into specific parts of the country is always worthwhile for this committee.

Deputy Harrington also referred to opening up networks, which is a core part of the work of ComReg. Our role is to deal with what can be described as economic bottlenecks, where a company has an element of market dominance. We deal with that dominance and open the network. That mainly happens with Eircom. A large part of ComReg's work over the last decade has been opening up the Eircom network so others can use it. What one buys from Sky, Vodafone or the IFA generally involves, in the main, their access to the Eircom network, which ultimately benefits the consumer.