Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 are in my name. In the three or four years since the establishment of metropolitan area networks, MANs, I have put parliamentary questions on a number of occasions to seek essential information about them. However, the Ceann Comhairle has ruled nearly all my questions out of order on the basis the matter is not directly in the Minister's remit. With MANs, the previous Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, seems to have begun a process, which the current Minister is continuing, of establishing a second national communications network. This has arisen from the mistakes made in the sale of the Eircom.

Like my colleagues, I regularly meet e-net, the company which won the contract to run MANs, and know Mr. Conal Henry and his colleagues. It is an efficient organisation and its turnover is increasing with the lighting of additional MANs. When the previous Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, announced MANs, he planned to introduce the service to 123 towns with populations of 1,500 or more. That number currently stands at 27 in the first group for which e-net won the tender. The company has lit the bulk of those projects and is currently trying to sell space on them. It has been successful at doing so in some parts of the country. However, the question arises of what happens to the second phase of MANs. Is the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, going to do anything about this before he leaves office? The total cost of MANs thus far is up to €120 million. He announced a tendering process for 100% broadband enablement but what will be the cost of meeting the demands? A range of important national decisions on MANs remains to be taken. I am aware of e-net's goodwill in terms of reporting to Deputies and spoke with representatives of the company as recently as last Friday about its current performance.

People might say at some point in the future that MANs resembles the genesis of a new national communications network. It arose because the Minister's predecessor, Senator O'Rourke, made a grave error with regard to Eircom from which we have never recovered. We sold the network. MANs has been likened to a big stick which we hold over Eircom to make it perform as if it was still a national asset. However, is a lot of money not being spent on this big stick? According to the Ceann Comhairle's interpretation of Standing Orders, the Minister cannot report to Deputies on the progress of MANs, even though €100 million in taxes is being spent on the project. It is now beginning to make an impact on communications but reporting to this House should be first and foremost. E-Net told me it would be happy for the Minister to report to the House on MANs. I hope such reports will be accessible to Members of the 30th Dáil because MANs has become a major national asset and we should know how it is progressing.

Amendment No. 20 is similar to my earlier amendment on mobile telephones and termination rates. According to the Minister, we will get the relevant information under the 2003 legislation. Through no fault of their own, the Department and the regulator do not have the information. When the phrase "termination rates" is mentioned to mobile telephone operators, they get very upset and worried. It is akin to asking them about their internal structures or whatever. However, the fees they charge for access to each other's networks are key drivers of revenues and profits and nobody knows what is happening, despite the Minister's comments on the previous group of amendments. Ms Reding, the EU Commissioner, for example, found it difficult to do so. When she issued her first proposal on roaming charges, all the powerful international mobile companies, which control three out of four such companies in Ireland, came out swinging in the Financial Times, The Sunday Business Post, The Irish Times and Irish Independent. They were upset about the investigation into termination rates.

Both these issues should be covered by legislation. The companies should be accountable to the Minister and the House regarding MANs expenditure, while full information should be available about mobile telephone charges so that proper assessments can be made of how companies are behaving in the context of competition. I commend my two amendments.

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