Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I am glad the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Ryan, is here for this Topical Issue matter. This debate on the issue I am raising has been a long time coming. I refer to people trying to report faults having an average waiting time of 57 minutes. That is the average waiting time. I am not raising this issue to complain, but as we face into the winter and the dark nights, na hoícheanta fada geimhridh, I am worried about people's mental health and their safety and security.

The situation at the moment is an unmitigated shambles and a disaster. I am not blaming the Minister. I differ with him regarding many opinions, including on green issues, but I do not on this issue. This has been a whole-of-government abandonment of the people, rural and urban. I refer to people with pendant alarms and other types of alarm connected to the telephone, as well as those who do not use mobile phones, especially the elderly and the vulnerable. They are all abandoned, because if the line goes off, they are out of contact.

I salute the founders of Eir, and its predecessors, Eircom and Telecom Éireann. I remember when the former Taoiseach, the late Albert Reynolds, waved a phone in the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis and stated that every phone would be fitted within a month, and it was. Now it is impossible to get a phone disconnected. It might take a year. It is also impossible to get a phone repaired. This is communications we are talking about. People can be waiting up to 60 minutes and still not be able to get through. I received a message from a man on Facebook this evening. He wrote:

I am a constituent of yours. I have been trying to contact Eir every day since 20 July, and been on hold every day for up to 60 minutes, without ever actually getting through to anyone. This company needs to be closed down.

This is a shocking situation in 2020. It was better back in the dark ages, when we had pigeons to deliver messages, than it is now. This is an outrageous situation and this company must be taken to task and closed down.

I salute the workmen who were there when the lines were put up and the phones installed, and especially the care and attention that was provided to the customers. I refer to the dignity of the work and the respect that those workmen had for that work. Now, however, poles are falling out on the road, hitting buses and lorries and breaking mirrors. A constituent contacted me today because he cannot cut his hedges. He has got hedge cutters from the county council to cut his hedges, but it cannot be done because wires were lying on the ditch. Wires are lying on roads and in the bogs. It is a Third World service, and above all there are no communications.

Constituents contact my office because their efforts have been futile and they are weary of being on the phone with Eir for so long. When those constituents have been unable to contact Eir themselves, they see us as the only last hope they have. They contact many other offices, besides mine. Eir often insists on those constituents getting an email address. Those people do not have email, they do not do Google and they do not even have broadband. It is shocking and disgraceful treatment, and it should be brought before the European Court of Human Rights. People are entitled to get a service for which they pay. Those people pay dearly for a connection and rent, yet they cannot use the telephones.

What about children going back to school and young people going back to college? Classes and exams are often online now. We talk about options for education, but those people cannot get broadband and do not have that service. What about farmers trying to do applications for grants? What about the CAO courses? People in rural Ireland have been especially discriminated against, but people in urban Ireland have also been affected by the situation.

It is time the new Government sorted out this issue and stopped the blackguarding, the plundering and the rape of good communities by this company, Eir, which should be ashamed of itself. It does not represent anything anymore. A gentleman contacted me recently who was trying to get disconnected from Eir for six months. Another man, Paul Lafford from Cahir, contacted me and he had an ordeal and a half in trying to deal with Eir. The company accused him of not paying his bills. When he then produced his bank statements, the company did not apologise, but it had to accept that he had paid. The company did not apologise. The Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg, is toothless, useless and fruitless. We have many such institutions and boards that similarly do nothing for the public. They just have nice fancy names, fancy jobs and to hell with the people. It is a sad indictment in 2020 that such behaviour is being allowed to continue. I appeal to the Minister to use his good offices within the Government to deal with this shambolic and disgraceful company.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank Deputy McGrath for raising this important issue. As he is aware, the provision of electronic communications services, including the repair and restoration of telephone services, occurs within a liberalised market, regulated by the independent regulator, ComReg. As the Deputy referred to, it is responsible for the regulation of the electronic communications sector under European and national legislation.

I recognise, as the Deputy said, how vital telecommunications services are to citizens for so many aspects of their daily lives, especially during the current Covid-19 pandemic. I and officials from my Department are focused on the need to ensure that telecommunications customers are sympathetically treated at this challenging time. In this regard, officials from my Department have been engaging intensively with ComReg and with the telecommunications industry during this period. Since Covid-19 began, ComReg has been monitoring consumer issues reported to it regarding outages and, in particular, those outages for vulnerable customers that may need to be escalated. ComReg advises customers experiencing difficulties to contact their service provider in the first instance. Following this, the customer is advised to contact ComReg and, depending on the particular circumstances, the issues may be escalated by ComReg.

One of ComReg's functions is to determine the scope of the universal service obligations, USO, for the Irish market and to decide which undertaking should be designated as the universal service provider, USP. The USO is designed to ensure that every person who makes a reasonable request for access for a connection and a phone service at a fixed location can have access to a basic set of telecommunications services, no matter where he or she lives. On 29 July 2016, ComReg designated Eir as the USP until June 2021. That designation as the USP of basic telecommunication services includes a requirement, among others, to clear line faults within timelines set in the USO. As the designated USP, Eir is also required to publish information on its performance regarding the provision of the USO. ComReg publishes this information quarterly. Legally binding annual quality of service performance targets for Eir are also set by ComReg, as the independent regulator for telecommunications operators, in respect of connections and service availability targets at a national level.

Eir provides a customer guarantee scheme for repairs. It provides two months' telephone exchange line rental credit where faults are not repaired within two working days from the date the fault was reported. Any complaint that Eir is failing to provide such basic services, or failing to restore lines within a reasonable period, should be forwarded to ComReg for further examination.

I reiterate that ensuring the performance of the requirements of this USO by Eir is a statutory function of ComReg. As Minister, I have no role or function in this area. ComReg is directly accountable "for the performance of its functions to a Committee of one or both Houses of the Oireachtas", as provided for in section 34(2) of the Communications Regulation Act 2002. ComReg has a dedicated consumer helpline and I urge consumers who feel they have not received an appropriate response from service providers to make contact with the regulator.

As the Deputy has raised the issue here, I will ensure that his question and associated concerns will be raised directly with ComReg and ensure it is aware of the debate we have had tonight. It is deeply annoying and frustrating to be in situations such as those described by the Deputy. That is especially the case for people who have been left on a phone for 60 minutes waiting for a customer service operation to answer, particularly one in telecommunications. It is maddening for customers that a telecommunications company cannot answer the phone after an hour. I know that basic services that one would expect, such as quick response and contact, not being provided is a matter of real concern and I will ensure that the details of this debate are forwarded to ComReg.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I have written to Carolan Lennon, the CEO of Eir. We might as well be writing to Santa Claus. The company has no respect for its customers. I again pay tribute to its workers. A good friend and neighbour of mine, Pádraig O'Ceallaigh, who retired recently after 42 years, and his colleagues, have been travelling around the country in vans. Those workers are travelling 100 miles and more to do repairs. Eir does not have the staff on the ground and it does not have the interest.

The Minister read out his reply and I know he is a decent man. I thank him for agreeing to come to Tipperary where I will show him some of the conditions of the network. It is the land of his forebears as well. The reply that he read, however, is patronising, insulting and it is toilet paper. It is disgraceful. The Minister referred to waiting an hour on a call, but it is not possible for people to get through, sometimes for months. They ring every day for months. They do not get through to staff in Eir and they do not get a call back. Customers find it impossible to get their lines disconnected, and it is equally impossible to get a phone put in. People are flocking away from the company, and it is faltering and about to fail. It will fail.

Then there is the issue of Eir broadband. I know of people living 50 yards and 100 yards away from where it stops and they cannot get it.

Those affected include sick people who want appointments.

There is a listening service called Good Morning South Tipperary in the small village of Newcastle in south Tipperary. Wonderful volunteers go in every Monday and ring elderly, vulnerable and lonely people. Alone has also come on board and I salute that. That service is no good if people do not have, and cannot get, phone lines. Those people cannot make complaints. Some of those people do not have computers and are not able to do that kind of stuff. Our elderly people who looked after this country and built it up are being blackguarded, not to mention business people, farmers and young people. It is a shame.

To see the state of the network now would make one sad. Wires and poles are hanging into fields from the road. The poles are rotten and dangerous. I was in a council yard yesterday morning and servicemen from a private contractor had to come in to look for signs before they attempted a road job to fix a pole that was hanging over the road and posing a danger to the public. It is like "Dad's Army". It is crazy stuff and if the Minister and the Government do not do something about this, more shame on them. The Government is going to abandon its citizens during this time of Covid-19 when they are feeling lonely and isolated and the only contact they have is the guthán in their hand to have a chat and caint with their friends. It is a shame. Those people are prisoners in their own houses and have no communication with the outside world.

I am depending on the Minister. This matter has been raised several times and has got worse. The phone companies have no interest in serving the public because all they want is the money and to hell with the people. ComReg should be disbanded because it is useless, toothless and fruitless. It provides jobs for the boys, that is all. ComReg states that its representatives have talked to the phone companies but it is a waste of time.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I hope the new national broadband scheme that we are rolling out, and about which I will be answering questions later, will close the gap where there is a shortage of service and an inability for customers, particularly in rural areas, to get broadband. We will ensure that not a single house is left out. That roll-out may also have knock-on benefits for building up the pole network and other infrastructure networks. I hope that will benefit and help other customers as the backhaul and other parts of the network are enhanced to provide that coverage.

Where that is not possible, there is competition. Rival services such as SIRO are rolling out high-quality broadband to tens of thousands of houses. Competition is a way to make sure that other operators which are not providing the sort of customer service we expect face consequences. Customers will be able to use their power to move to other operators from which they are getting proper service and responses. In areas where there is no service, the State will step in to close the gap but where there is competition, I believe that will be an impetus for companies to improve.

At the same time, and as I said in my original response, there is a universal service obligation on Eir. It is ComReg's job to monitor, manage and, where appropriate, reprimand companies if they are not meeting the basic service requirements set out. I will forward the Deputy's complaints to ComReg to get the message across that what he is seeing on the ground in Tipperary is not up to the standard expected of a universal service provider. I will ensure that is brought to ComReg's attention and it will then be its responsibility to take whatever action must be taken.