Results 4,361-4,380 of 11,242 for speaker:Noel Dempsey

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I understand why some people have a difficulty with this section. It provides an enabling mechanism to allow the Minister to make new regulations to provide for indictable offences for breaches of obligations under this Bill and to give effect to an Act adopted by the European Community relating to the provision of electronic communication services, radio spectrum, the national numbering...

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I thank the Senators for their contributions. I wish to reassure Senator McCarthy that the 2002 Act provides for a 21 day scrutiny for any regulation the Minister introduces. The question and point about democratic accountability is answered by the fact that we are discussing it here and will do so in the other House too. In addition, there is provision for Oireachtas scrutiny and the...

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: These are all technical amendments, caused by other amendments. The reference in section 46A (1)(b) changes from subsection (5) to subsection (6) as a result of amendment No. 8. Amendment No. 10 changes the paragraph numbering to replace the number of the old subsection (2) with subsection (3) to ensure the numbering remains sequential. Amendment No. 11, as proposed by the Parliamentary...

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I do not propose to accept this amendment because the new section 46C is a statutory provision such that in a trial on indictment, a judge may order the provision of certain information to a jury. He or she is not obliged to do so but he may order it done. This is a practical provision to try to facilitate the understanding of complex evidence by a jury because it could be argued that...

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I accept the amendment. The Senator is correct.

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I am satisfied the Bill is clear enough when one takes account of this Bill, the Competition Authority legislation and other existing legislation. These amendments are designed to ensure there will be maximum co-operation. I would expect that but it is better to be safe than sorry. There is a propensity at times for turf wars to break out so we decided to be very sure and insert these...

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I must disappoint the Senator and not accept the amendment.

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I will certainly examine it. The selling of telephone connections to home owners is entirely a commercial matter for the telephone company, in this case Eircom. It is a privately owned company in a fully liberalised market. A Minister has no function in that area. The only question that arises is, given what the Senator said about the existing poor service, what if people buy the lines...

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: There is a slight difference between ground rents and what we are talking about now. We got paid approximately €8 billion for the piece of infrastructure we had in the ground. The people who have it bought it from us. If I recall rightly, in the early 1970s, when the then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Deputy Albert Reynolds, announced that the system would be digitised and the...

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: ——by the company. We should not get too hung up on this because a number of new technologies now allow for telephone service to be delivered without wires, and that is the route it will go in the future. On the other hand, and the Senator might be here giving out to me ten years from now, I am sure——

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: It is my nature to be optimistic. I am sure Eircom will be delighted to begin taking the purchase price off people for wires again. It would suit Babcock & Brown, and the pension funds it fronts, to get a big lump of money back into its coffers. I do not think I will oblige it.

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: It was——

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I have sympathy for the intent of the Senator's amendment but I cannot accept it because the purpose of amending the Post Office (Amendment) Act 1951, as outlined in the Bill before the House, was to increase fines to deter nuisance calls specifically to ECAS, the emergency call answering service. The proposed amendment would widen that considerably and would not fit in with the remit of the...

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: Yes.

Seanad: Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee Stage (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: This is an amendment to remove a typographical error.

Seanad: Schools Building Projects (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I am taking the matter on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin. The recently published area development plan for the N4-M4 corridor equips the Department with a blueprint for education services development in an area that will continue to experience rapid change. Senator O'Rourke will be aware I began that process when I was Minister for Education and Science....

Seanad: Post Office Network (20 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: I repeat that a strong, viable post office network is the best guarantee of a future for postmasters and postmistresses. That is the commitment we gave in our programme for Government and it is precisely what we have delivered in the last ten years. Although the organisation of the post office network is a matter for the board and management of An Post, the programme for Government clearly...

Written Answers — Alternative Energy Projects: Alternative Energy Projects (21 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: The commercial production of electricity is a fully liberalised market. I have no statutory authority to insist on any particular ownership arrangement in any independent undertaking proposing to harness wind-power to generate electricity. It is a matter for each landowner to negotiate the terms and conditions under which any other party can occupy the landowners' land to construct and...

Written Answers — Alternative Energy Projects: Alternative Energy Projects (21 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: With regard to renewable heat microgenerators, under the Greener Homes Scheme Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) has to date, approved grant assistance for a total of 11,000 such installations under this scheme. An indicative breakdown of the number of heat microgenerators approved for funding to date is as follows: Heat Pumps 3080; Solar Thermal Panels 2970; Wood Biomass Heating 4950. Under...

Written Answers — Alternative Energy Projects: Alternative Energy Projects (21 Feb 2007)

Noel Dempsey: Significant renewable energy resources are being harnessed to contribute to Ireland's energy consumption in the electricity, heat and transport markets. I have forwarded a graph detailing energy flow in Ireland in 2005 to the Deputy. The graph and the following table, which are based on data supplied by Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) and additional data available from EirGrid, record the...