Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 64 and 72 together.

Since taking up office, I have met the chairman and chief executive of Eircom to discuss Eircom's plans for the future, including those for structural separation. Officials in my Department have also met representatives of Eircom to clarify some of the issues outlined in Eircom's discussion paper and I expect they will engage again with Eircom in due course. Eircom, as a private company, is entitled to implement the corporate structure that best meets its needs, provided that appropriate engagement takes place with ComReg on any regulatory issues that might arise in a separated company.

The roll-out of broadband infrastructure is a key priority of Government. Given the extensive network operated by Eircom in this regard, its investment and organisational plans are of major interest to me. It is, however, important to also emphasise the role of ComReg in terms of determination of the regulatory obligations arising from structural changes that Eircom may make.

Open access for service providers is critically important and ComReg's recent resolution of the outstanding issues around local loop unbundling is a welcome development in this regard. I am keen that we achieve the optimum level of an open access network.

The question as to whether customers will be best served by the functional opening up of the network or by a structural split between the retail and network divisions of the business requires detailed policy analysis. The European Commission has recently proposed the introduction of new powers for national regulators which will facilitate the promotion of functional separation where it is deemed necessary due to market failure.

My objective in this regard is to further Government policy and to protect the public interest so that new higher speed communications services are delivered at the lowest possible price. Any engagement on this issue will be in terms of what will ultimately benefit the economy by reference to underlying competitiveness and how the consumer will be affected.

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