Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

The Minister stated two and a half weeks ago, when 45,000 people woke up to find they had no telephone or broadband services, that he would rush emergency legislation through the House. Almost three weeks later, there is no sign of it.

Ms Isolde Goggin, chairperson of ComReg, stated that she would like to see a statutory basis for a notice of withdrawal of service, in other words, every company would have to give a notice of withdrawal of service. Could the Minister have provided this already and why is he not providing it?

Has the Minister asked ComReg for a review of this debacle? When we invigilated it at the Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, it was unclear. For example, the media tell us that ComReg knew about this for three weeks and 19 termination notices had been issued by Eircom to Smart Telecom. Was that the case? Can the Minister confirm that ComReg knew well about this and to some extent, like the little boy who cried wolf, was not ready when the wolf finally appeared?

Does the Minister follow the activities of the joint committee? Did he see, for example, Mr. Oisín Fanning when he complained bitterly, almost tearfully, to the committee about portability, and the difficulties of enabling exchanges and of getting broadband without changing numbers, and asked that the Minister, who leads this House in legislation on communications, take some action? Did he feel at that stage he had a responsibility to act in regard to the only independent Irish company in the market but failed to do so?

Is the Minister concerned about the business models used by companies in this market? Earlier this week, Mr. Joe Duffy presented a programme that featured a litany of complaints about another operator that offers an apparent low cost package. However, citizen after citizen rang the programme bitterly upset about the treatment they received. At the end of the day——

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