Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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What is holding this up? What is the reason for the delay? Mr. Godfrey has outlined what the office can do and what it is looking at doing but why the hold-up? There is huge frustration. Many delegations have appeared before the committee but people are almost screeching across the floor at the witnesses. I challenge the witnesses, when taking their scenic drive around the country on the national primary and secondary routes, to take seven Members of the Oireachtas - regardless of who is here in a month's time - to plan the route. They will come back with evidence of 3% satisfaction or 3% penetration and not 90%. It is very frustrating. Mr. Godfrey makes the point that smartphones and other devices are the problem but we are talking about mobile phone coverage. The coverage is to connect to a mobile phone. That is how I understand it. The witnesses are now saying the device at the other end is not picking up the service; that the mobile phone is wrong and not the service. I do not buy it.

If doing a circuit of Ireland rally in a month's time, ComReg should ask the politicians going to the doorsteps over the next four or five weeks about it because they will tell the witnesses exactly what is happening. There is an outcry about mobile phone coverage. What the witnesses put in front of us this morning, with the greatest of respect, bears no relation to the reality on the ground. I am glad to see colleagues from all over the country are rowing in on this matter. The witnesses have outlined what ComReg can and should do. Why is it not being done? Why the delay? What is the issue? Why are those things not being done to improve mobile phone coverage? Look at every local radio station in the country. I will go back to the point about the complaints. A community group in Ballinteer in County Cork has contacted the witnesses' office continuously about the broadband service and how operators are charging for a broadband service when there is none. That group has received very little hearing in respect of its compliant. ComReg has to see the reality. What the witnesses are saying is not based on fact.