Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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We will not go there but the people whom I represent would be anxious that the point would be made, because they feel they have rights as citizens too.

I say that respectfully because I have great time for Deputy Eamon Ryan.

I have an intern, a very bright fellow from America in my office. It occurred to me that if he had been in this room last week listening to Eir, he could only draw one conclusion, if he believed everything it said, and I say this with great respect and not in a flippant way, which is that we had a totally incompetent public service and we had incompetent politicians leading our policy makers. I do not believe either is the case but it would be a reasonable observation. Either Eir is correct or the departmental officials are not up to their job. A lay person could only look at the situation in that way. One cannot say both are up to it, if Eir is telling the truth. For those who are watching the proceedings of this committee, it will occur to them that somebody is off the wall in this regard and somebody is not up to what they are at. Either the representatives from Eir who appeared before the committee last week were putting in red herrings and erroneous stuff or the officials present are defending the indefensible. I have a view on that and the officials would be happy with my view. I am stating what a reasonable person looking at the proceedings would say.

This is a significant question and one to which the public would want to know the answer. It was mentioned that an Eir connection costs €170 but that there is another connection charge for each change of service and that can lead to a substantial sum and then there is the issue if one is more than 50 m from the pole owned by Eir. I think the people watching the proceedings have a right to know the answer to this question. The Eir proposition will cost consumers a great deal more and I would like the witnesses to put figures on that because the public needs to know. As Mr. Griffin said it was like comparing apples and oranges. The public needs to know that this is the implication of the hypothetical Eir bid of last week.