Brendan Ryan (Labour)

——in which brutal force was used in many cases to undermine unacceptable democratically elected governments and democratic governments. I wish the United States would fulfil a role in the world that is consistent with its own rhetoric. I wish whoever is elected President of the United States well. The world needs enlightened leadership from that country. My own views on this are fairly well recorded.

Last weekend, a most extraordinary story broke in the media about a proposed deal between the State and Eircom which, among other things, would have allowed Eircom to rip off its consumers to the tune of a 10% increase in their rates. The State endeavoured to persuade Eircom to roll out a proper broadband service in return for which it would have given the company a guarantee to protect it from the risks of the marketplace. Apparently the company declined, or else the State, perhaps at the last moment, got sense. I cannot figure out which.

The Government has floundered around for the past seven years regarding our telecommunications infrastructure. It is time we had a debate on our broadband infrastructure and, incidentally, on our transport infrastructure. It is not wonderful to boast that we have underspent on capital investment this year to the tune of nearly €1 billion. That is a disgrace in a country with such an enormous infrastructural deficit.

I call for a debate on competition policy, particularly on the agencies in the State that are supposed to protect consumers. We have watched the banking sector rip off consumers and Senator Ross has been particularly eloquent in highlighting this issue. The one shining exception in this sector, which has provided credit and support for poor people who would not have been accepted by the banks and who were wide open to the threat of illegal money lending, was the credit union movement. However, who did the Competition Authority bring to court only the credit unions? The authority had a wonderful victory last week because it found that the Irish League of Credit Unions was using its insurance business to try to support its other activities. What an achievement this is in terms of the rights of consumers. Last Sunday, some genius from the authority suggested that the GAA could be brought to court by the authority. In terms of competition, we are moving into the area of "Neverland", to use the movie title.

We desperately need a debate about competition in order to focus on the rights of consumers, not on the ego of the Competition Authority.