Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the decision to allow me to raise this issue. I am glad the Minister of State, Deputy Joe McHugh, is here as he should have great empathy for consumers in the Border areas, which are once again the victim of bad decision making in Europe. It is extremely regrettable that EU Ministers have agreed to delay the abolition of mobile phone roaming charges from this year to at least 2018. The decision demonstrates a blatant disregard for consumers and prioritises large multinational mobile phone companies and their interests at the expense of the interests of customers throughout the 28 European Union member states.

We are all very well aware of the punitive charges associated with roaming calls. Those of us who live in the Border area, such as the Minister of State and me, know that when we go on a journey along the Border, we may at times be on our own networks of 3 or Vodafone but suddenly a British network can be used, leaving us with exorbitant charges for transacting business and making or receiving calls. Sometimes mobile phone roaming charges are associated with people going on holidays but this issue affects a large cohort of people in this country who live in the Border area or who have good reasons to travel North and South to transact business daily. All of us living in the Border area have at many times received exorbitant mobile phones bills as a result.

It is absolutely deplorable that the communications Ministers of the European Union agreed to defer a decision made in 2014 and which was to be implemented by December 2015. My understanding is there will be an "assessment" by mid 2018. This is kicking a can down the road; a decision was made a year ago but the issue is now to be assessed more than three years into the future. What proposals were put forward on behalf of the Irish people at the recent meeting when this decision was made? People are bitterly disappointed. There was a palaver when it was agreed to abolish roaming charges, as the indication was that costs would be reduced for consumers throughout the European Union. Naturally, we are concerned about our own country first. There has been little or no comment from the Government or the Minister about this deplorable decision, which was taken approximately a week ago.

I hope the Minister of State can convey through the Minister, Deputy White, to the relevant authorities in the European Commission and the relevant Commissioner that this is not acceptable. A decision was made a year ago but now we hear nonsense to the effect that it will take time for companies to adjust. I have never heard of a delay in implementing new or increased charges but there is always a delay if there is a need to reduce charges. This is typical of European Union bureaucracy, giving in to the interests of the large multinational companies. What was a very positive decision is now being reversed after 12 months and we are being told the issue will be assessed again three years from now. That is absolutely reprehensible behaviour and I hope our representatives are making this argument at ministerial and other levels to the European Commission and the relevant Commissioner.

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent)
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Hear, hear.

Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He is correct in that I have much empathy for what he describes as I have driven through the Border twice every time I have come to these Houses since 2002, or for 13 years. It has been an issue.

I welcome this opportunity to clarify for the House the steps taken by the EU institutions to control, reduce and ultimately to eliminate roaming charges within the European Union.

I am aware of the recent media reports which suggested the Council or the Commission does not support actions to eliminate roaming charges, or is seeking to delay the removal of roaming charges, contrary to the consumers' interest. This is not an accurate representation of the true position. The Minister fully supports harmonised EU actions to eliminate roaming charges, but this shared objective has to be achieved in a manner that avoids long-term adverse impacts on users of mobile phone services generally, including those who do not avail of roaming services.

The EU has made substantial progress in reducing the maximum permitted roaming charges. Three EU regulations, adopted since 2007, have progressively reduced roaming charges by an estimated 80%. This includes voice calls, SMS, texting, and data-Internet access. These substantial reductions in retail roaming prices are also sustainable due to the imposition of proportionate reductions in wholesale charges.

The European Commission brought forward proposals for a future EU regulation to incentivise mobile service providers to remove roaming charges voluntarily. The European Parliament adopted an amendment to the European Commission proposal which would prohibit retail roaming charges within the EU from December 2015. The European Parliament's proposal does not prohibit the imposition of wholesale charges. If service providers are prohibited from recovering those wholesale costs directly from retail users, it is inevitable they will seek to recover the costs from other users or reduce volume limits in bundled minutes and data package limits to control costs. These outcomes would not serve the long-term interests of users.

The shared position within Council is to give the Latvian Presidency a mandate to enter into negotiations with the European Parliament to reduce retail roaming charges further towards zero. The revised charges, if agreed by Parliament, will deliver significant further reductions in regulated retail roaming charges and allow service providers to recover the wholesale costs incurred in providing the service. The proposal provides for a further review of the regulation by June 2018 which will include a further review of both wholesale and retail roaming charges.

I am glad to have had this opportunity to clarify for the House the significant progress which has been made possible by EU regulations to control and reduce retail roaming charges and to confirm that the Government's ultimate objective is to eliminate retail roaming prices in a manner which does not generate predictable adverse impacts for users.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for his reply. The response from the European Commission, which the departmental officials have accepted, is not acceptable. The Minister of State said “If service providers are prohibited from recovering those wholesale costs directly from retail users, it is inevitable they will seek to recover the costs from other users or reduce volume limits”. That is code for saying we are going to protect the profits of the multinational companies. It is not acceptable that once again the interests of the international mobile phone companies come ahead of the consumer.

In 2013, Commissioner Kroes told her peers in the Commission and the European Parliament that she wanted them to be able to return to their constituents and say they had been able to end mobile phone roaming costs. That has not happened and is not happening. No matter how it is presented, roaming charges will stay with us in a different format. If the annual profits of these international mobile phone companies operating throughout the European Union were analysed, we would be startled by the returns they make for their shareholders. There is the added difficulty of poor mobile coverage. Those companies have got away without investing in infrastructure. If one is on a phone call for more than two or three minutes, particularly travelling northwards from the city, as the Minister of State and I know, every call drops out. It is scandalous how little investment the mobile phone companies have put into the infrastructure to ensure there is a quality service. Phone traffic has increased annually but there has been no worthwhile investment to ensure the consumer who is paying for the service gets a proper service. The reply is most disappointing from the point of view that the European Union is saying it must tell the telephone companies how it will make up for their losses if it reduces mobile phone roaming charges. It is not acceptable. It is time the interests of the consumers were put first.

Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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When I was in opposition, I did a lot of shouting about roaming charges. If one was going from O₂Ireland to O₂UK, crossing the Border, one was charged. That changed when various companies, such as O₂, said if one was locked into O₂North and South, one did not have to pay roaming but if one happened to move into another frequency, one would be charged.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I have had that experience. On the network I use I am not supposed to be charged, but every time I go North of the Border and every Friday going to do clinics in Monaghan, I have that extra phone bill. We are all being codded by the science and terminology these companies bring out.

Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Yes. There are still charges if one roams into a different network, such as Orange or Vodafone UK. There are data charges on top of that.

Compared with 2007, the cost of outgoing voice calls has fallen by over 60% to 19 cent per minute. I agree that we have to work towards zero. Incoming voice calls have fallen 80% to 5 cent per minute. Outgoing texts have fallen from 11 cent in 2009 to 5 cent. Per megabyte data charges have fallen from 70 cent in 2012, when the regulation on data price was introduced, to 20 cent today.

It is significant that the Latvian Presidency has been given responsibility to ensure we work towards proposals that would allow mobile service providers to charge a premium above domestic charges only to recover the regulated wholesale charges. My colleague, Brian Hayes, MEP, raised this publicly during the week at the European Parliament. I will speak to him about how we can move this forward. The date 2018 was given but that seems a long time to work towards eliminating charges altogether. I agree about the mobile coverage at the moment. Everything is not hunky-dory; in fact it has deteriorated. I met some weeks ago with the head of ComReg. The new motorways were not built in a joined-up way with mobile phone antennae placed along the motorways. We are playing catch-up. Calls are dropping out. We need more information on the infrastructural upgrades. We need to know how much money is being spent.

When I go to Cavan tonight, my calls will be dropping out the whole way and then I will probably go through Enniskillen. The coverage in the North is very poor. I hear, however, the mobile phone companies in Northern Ireland are making a substantial investment in their infrastructure. They should make the same level of investment in the South. We need an open, transparent conversation about mobile phone operators. Local companies declare their profits publicly, but we need to ensure the end user is not the one left to do the heavy lifting. That has been the case. There are different attractive packages and bundling of minutes and so on and phone costs have come down, if one is smart. If one brings one’s iPhone to Belfast, the data charges are astronomical. We are part of the European Union which must become a non-roaming charge environment for phone access. I will have a long conversation with Brian Hayes to see how this Government, including the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, who is also keen to work towards zero cost, can work with the European Parliament to push this important matter forward.