Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

These are amendments of the Communications Regulation Act 2002. Amendment No. 12 provides for a universal service obligation for all broadband undertakings. When will the Minister make the famous announcement, which the communication industry tells us is imminent, of a tendering process whereby the country will be broadband enabled? It was disappointing that we did not hear this during the speech on Saturday night, although I did not hear the entire speech.

Amendment No. 13 provides for another function for ComReg, to ensure that the national broadband network is fully accessible to third party operators. One of the common themes in the communications portfolio of the past four years has been the failure to unbundle the networks and the local loop. We discussed the transmission network today in respect of electricity. The Minister put forward the case that the national electricity network should be preserved as a neutrally run network with full accessibility for all operators. This did not happen with the privatisation of the Eircom network. Many of our citizens have great respect for the ESB as a great national enterprise and one of the companies, along with RTE, that created public service industry in Ireland. This Government will not be trusted with handling the electricity network given the colossal failure of the communication networks. This amendment would ensure the broadband network is accessible to third party operators.

Amendment No. 14 is related to a later amendment tabled by Deputy Durkan. Each amendment is a matter about which we have had up to 12 questions over the past years. The amendment amends the principal Act to ensure that the national communications network is maintained to the highest current technical standards in every sector of the network. I recently received a petition from residents of Kilmoganny in the heart of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's constituency. The constituents were devastated by the failure of the old incumbent telecoms company, Eircom, to provide an updated broadband service. I passed the correspondence on to the Minister.

See this speech in context