Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. There is no point saying there are no problems because it is a difficulty. One hears many reasons. When the Deputy made the point yesterday on the radio, he heard technical reasons it is not happening, but the texts coming in from the public were in support of the Deputy's point that coverage has deteriorated. There are all sorts of reasons and I will not waste the Deputy's time or the public's time on whether it is because data gets priority over phone calls or whether it is because of an increase in data being communicated. There are antenna challenges. I take the Deputy's point on doing an audit of mobile phone coverage on a national basis. It is something about which we cannot be complacent. Mobile coverage is as important as broadband. People do business on their hands-free kit on the road. There is nothing more frustrating than dropping a call, and it does happen. It happened to me a couple of times today on the way to Dublin from Donegal. It happens quite regularly in Northern Ireland also. Perhaps we could widen the debate. I will certainly speak to my colleague, Deputy Frank Feighan, who is Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement to see whether different factors are involved in Northern Ireland, whether it is looking to do things differently and whether there is something we could learn together. The same sequence of dropping calls happens there as it does in the South when I am en route to Dublin.

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