Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I wish to raise two Government commitments that are not subject to budgetary constraints. The first pertains to energy competitiveness and the Government's assurance on overseeing the transfer of transmission assets to Eirgrid, thereby establishing it as the national transmission grid company by the end of this year. That was in the programme for Government for a good reason, namely, to achieve structural separation between the ESB and Eirgrid in the context of facilitating competition in energy generation and supply in Ireland. Now the Taoiseach cannot even tell us when the legislation to facilitate that will be brought before the House despite the promises made last September and October that it would be introduced by mid-2008. Why has he changed his mind on that issue?

The second commitment concerns telecommunications infrastructure. The Government has been in power for one year, yet there has been no movement on the promotion of broadband. We were due to have a national broadband scheme by 1 July. Why has that not been put in place and when will we see it? In terms of the promotion of next generation broadband, which is a direct competitiveness issue that would help to boost our economy through infrastructural provision, tomorrow morning we will get yet another forum report. When will the Government make a decision on that?

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