Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Were politicians involved in the task force? It is important that they be involved. We had a meeting with the mobile phone companies perhaps six weeks ago in the AV room and I had never seen such anger – right across the country, not just west Cork- at any meeting I had attended since I was elected to Dáil Éireann. Politicians are getting it in the neck because the reception is getting worse, not better, and we are responsible for it. Under Irish telecoms law, mobile network operators are only required to cover between 70% and 80% of the country’s population and there is no legal requirement to cover rural areas. Under a 2014 agreement in the United Kingdom, all four mobile network operators collectively agreed to guarantee voice and text coverage across 90% of the geographical area of the United Kingdom by 2017. I urge the Minister to work with all the Irish mobile network operators to agree to a similar arrangement. Everybody has a right to the same service, regardless of where he or she lives.

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