Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

In general, I welcome the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007. We have waited an exceptionally long time for it; I believe it was first mooted as long ago as 2002, not long after the original 2002 Act. It is uncanny, if not eerie, that the Act it amends was also passed in the dying days of an outgoing Government. That Government was of course returned, but the Bill was passed very late in the parliamentary session.

In the interim, the Irish telecommunications sector has often been marked by chaotic and obstructive behaviour on the part of operators and serious allegations of collusion, with the result that there have been astonishingly low levels of customer service from many. That has played a major role in the disastrous broadband deficit that continues to afflict Ireland and leaves us languishing at the bottom of every international broadband league table.

Lethargy regarding regulatory reform during most of the Government's time in office has meant the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, his predecessor, Deputy Dermot Ahern, and the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government generally have stifled the growth and innovation necessary to maintain a world-beating communications sector. The Government's ennui on this matter continues to threaten our national competitiveness and long-term economic prosperity. For example, a few weeks ago, Magnet Networks reported it was moving its emphasis from consumer-based broadband services provided through local loop unbundling, LLU, to other products, in other words, from households to commercial firms, because of its basic inability to operate effectively and profitably in a sector where LLU was still so underdeveloped.

Also last week, BT once again criticised the difficult regulatory market for the Irish telecommunications industry. There was media speculation that the losses of €1 billion recently posted by the company could lead to job losses, since broadband roll-out and services development have been hampered so much by the flawed regulatory environment. We could name many other examples of companies floundering in this market owing to Government failures.

For those reasons, almost two years ago, the Labour Party and I published a document entitled Enabling Ireland's Future. In it I laid out the policies I felt should form the basis of the telecommunications market. Since several of those policies are in the Bill before us, we generally welcome what the Minister has presented. Regarding comments made by Deputy Durkan's colleague last week, we know the Minister and his civil servants are avid readers of Opposition policies. I particularly welcome the fact the Minister has agreed to implement the policies we advocated two years ago on co-competition powers for ComReg, fines up to 10% of turnover, an emergency call-answering service, and greater regulation of the .ie domain registry.

I am only sorry that it has taken the Minister so long to produce this critical legislation. There are 12 or 14 matters we would like to address in amendments. I thank the civil servants from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources for the excellent briefing they gave me and the other spokespersons.

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