Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

My colleague has already given other examples. In telecommunications, Smart Telecom's subscribers were arbitrarily left without services overnight without warning, protection, compensation or any word of comfort. Many of the victims are still owed a great deal for services they purchased but never received. What happened in that case? There were regulators, bureaucrats, technocrats, plutocrats, and all the other variations thereon, but they did not protect the consumer. No one acted in the consumer's interests, an extraordinary situation. All those bodies and quangos, as the late Brian Lenihan would call them in this House, are visible and make noises. From time to time they move around, coming within one's field of vision or cropping up on the radar screen. However, when it came to doing what they were meant to do in this situation — protect the unfortunate consumer — they were absent.

Regarding services provided by Smart Telecom, for months an argument was going on behind the scenes of which no one was aware. All of a sudden, the whole edifice collapsed. Amazingly, with such competition and consumer protection, 80% of customers have reverted to the original service-provider. Competition and regulators' interventions have achieved little. The regulatory system as transposed from European into Irish law is failing. There is a tendency on the part of our negotiators slavishly to follow the lead of their European colleagues. That may or may not be useful, but it is particularly sensitive in areas such as consumer protection, energy price increases and the provision of telecommunications services.

What happened regarding the provision of broadband services? When was consideration taken of domestic and industrial consumers, and who protected and stood up for them? Where were those on the various quangos, and the Ministers whose job it was to direct them? What has ordinarily occurred in such situations is that Ministers have become coy, shy, acting in a hands-off, detached, distracted, disenchanted fashion disconnected from the job they are supposed to do. It is the unfortunate consumer who suffers, being left unprotected every time and paying through the nose because Ministers do not act. Neither do the Competition Authority or the consumer protection agencies act, and the consumer is abandoned.

The events and experiences of recent years should suffice to galvanise Ministers, were it possible to do so. However, they are so accustomed to inertia that they are no longer capable. Alas and alack, the unfortunate consumer must pay. It is sad that we should see this legislation produced at the 11th hour and the last moment of this Government. We recognise that it is merely a fig-leaf allowing it to go forth and meet the electorate.

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