Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

The Minister likes to paint himself as a helpless observer who is frustrated like the rest of us. He is the Minister. He has powers within the legislation to set timelines and deadlines. What happens, for example, if OneVision pulls out, as Boxer did last spring? We would have to start from scratch again. We warned about this in the spring when we said we were concerned about OneVision's capacity to deliver. The Minister said he had full confidence it would happen. He also said RTE was required to produce free-to-air digital services by the end of this year, and not by the end of 2010. He said RTE would be required to proceed with free-to-air digital television regardless of whether there was a commercial element to the multiplexes or not. I disagreed with the Minister on that point at that time. He has now changed his position. He says the preference is to launch the free-to-air and commercial multiplex services at the same time because the only way to get people to buy into the switch-over is to give them something new.

The thing is drifting along and the Minister is not taking a grip of it. He is allowing someone else to deal with the problem. He has a legal obligation and the power to set timelines. Will he set a time within which OneVision, RTE and the BAI must come to an agreement, after which he will change the rules and find a different way to roll out digital terrestrial television, DTT, in Ireland? He needs to do that. Otherwise we will continue to drift and the deadline will continue to move beyond 2012.

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