Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Tá súil agam go bhfuilimid ag druidim i dtreo an deiridh leis an bpraiseach atá déanta ag an Rialtas seo don bhonneagar teileachumarsáide.

ComReg is toothless and I always wondered why. We knew it was toothless because we could all see it. We saw it when Citibank encouraged people to buy Eircom shares about two years ago, citing Eircom's ability to get around the regulator. It is beyond me why we did not sit up and take notice of such a statement by an international adviser. ComReg is also indifferent to consumers. Its willingness to deal with individual consumer complaints is not impressive. Its unwillingness to deal with such complaints is what one would notice. An example is the recent controversy involving NTL in Dublin, in which ComReg apparently claimed it was not its problem.

The cable component of our telecommunications system is in a mess. It is mostly used in television, but it should be used for so much more. There is an extraordinary variation in provision and price from region to region, yet ComReg apparently felt it did not need to worry about such a variation. Why does it cost more to have a basic digital television service in Cork than it does in Limerick or Dublin? I keep asking officials from ComReg and they tell me that there are some mysterious factors at work. They have tolerated poor customer services from cable companies and from Eircom. They have also tolerated bullying tactics.

I availed of a low-cost option for international calls, which did not mean leaving Eircom. When I registered with a company to do this, I promptly received a letter from Eircom telling me I had left its service. I knew I had not left Eircom and I was not going to leave Eircom because it is far too complicated. The letter informed me that I would not be receiving any services if I had problems with my line as I had abandoned Eircom. I wrote to ComReg and I was assured that ComReg officials were in touch with Eircom and that Eircom was sorry about the mistake. When I telephoned Eircom, I was told it was definitely not a mistake, but I could not be informed of what company I had chosen as that was confidential. I chose a new provider but Eircom would not tell me the name of the provider I had chosen. Eircom would only put me through to someone who, for a fee, would re-establish my connection with Eircom. It was rip off upon rip off and it was organised and planned.

ComReg eventually succeeded in getting Eircom to sort it out and I was told by ComReg that Eircom was sorry. I wrote to Eircom, but I have not received an acknowledgement from the company of its high-handed attempt to frighten me into paying money for something I did not need to pay for. Having listened to the Minister of State, I now know why and I will come to that.

However, I want to return to the issue of cable television. We pay one licence fee per household, no matter how many televisions are in the house. However, there is a rip off in Cork where cable television viewers are charged extra for multi-room viewing. I have no idea why that is the case. The signal does not break down or dilute because one has it in two rooms instead of one. It is a rip-off and an abuse of a local monopoly. If ComReg was any good, it would not allow the service providers to do such things. Instead, it stands back and leaves them alone. We are all familiar with the universal complaints about customer service. One of the problems is that most of these companies no longer have a physical base, such as an office. One cannot visit the headquarters of these organisations because there is no such place — they exist somewhere in cyberspace. Judging by the universal accent I hear every time I deal with Eircom, I am convinced its call centre is entirely staffed by people from Asia, or based in Asia. That would not be a problem if the service were any good, but it is not, through no fault of those at the other end of the telephone line.

The provision of cable broadband services is a basic requirement. Ireland is unique because of the extent to which cable has been installed in its urban areas, probably as a result of the demand for British television 20 years ago. All of our domestic areas should be able to avail of the highest quality cable broadband services because we got started early. The cable broadband that is on offer is slow by the standards one would expect nowadays. It is limited and it is expensive. ComReg's toothlessness has made it unable to do anything about the limitations and expensiveness of the broadband service. When one reads the stuff on its website, it is clear it is too obsessed with complicated technical issues relating to spectrum allocation, etc. It has not really got around to focusing on consumers. The astonishing manner in which it rolled over and allowed Eircom to impose increases in the cost of line rental does not do it any credit. Why should it be getting more and more expensive to rent a fixed line? It is dreadful that increases were sanctioned to give Eircom a little boost in the one area it controls, after it was squeezed out on the call side.

I have picked up on one extraordinary thing throughout my dealings with ComReg. It seems the regulator starts from a position of accepting the bona fides of the companies it is regulating. It presumes the people with whom it is dealing are nice guys who need to be brought into line. A means of regulating the communications sector was developed as a recognition that those involved are not nice guys — they are out to make as much money as they can, using whatever legal ways they can. I do not suggest for a second that such people behave illegally. They try to maximise their profits in a legal manner, which is what their shareholders expect them to do. It would be naive to expect patriotism from telecommunications companies, but such naivety is widespread and extensive.

The private telephone monopoly that was established when Eircom was privatised is regulated with such a light touch that Eircom, when it was a publicly quoted company, could boast throughout the world about its ability to defy the regulator. ComReg was established to prevent the abuse of that monopoly, but it has failed to do so. The legislation that was used to establish the regulator continues to be inadequate, five years later. The process of defending consumers, which involves going to the High Court to make people do certain things, seems to be the most incredibly tortuous way of providing the most straightforward services, such as roads and water, to consumers, who should be able to take them for granted. There are many problems in our local authorities, but at least they are able to provide water and sewerage services — the ESB provides electricity connections — when new housing estates are built. People tell me it is increasingly difficult to get a telephone line installed or repaired. It is the privatised monopoly that is causing the biggest problems.

I would like to respond to some aspects of the Minister of State's speech. I could make a speech about the broadband mess, which is the only way to describe it. The ideology that competition can solve such problems is probably driven by the Department of Finance. First year economics students could tell one that real competition exists if there are so many players in the market that the departure of one participant would not affect the market. It is probably impossible to get a sufficient number of players in the telecommunications market. I have no problem with maximising competition, but the belief that it will lead to the provision of broadband in Castletownbere and its hinterland is nonsense. In a country like Ireland, which has a fairly substantial population outside its major towns and cities, universal access to high-quality and high-speed broadband cannot be achieved without the State involving itself in the market.

When one listens to the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, one wonders on what planet people are living. While I do not want to quote too extensively from his speech, I would like to comment on some revelations about the nature of Irish society which seem to have dawned on the Government. The Minister of State said that "both ComReg and the European Commission have cited the lack of strong enforcement measures as an obstacle to the implementation of the regulatory regime". How many speeches on enforcement, in areas like drink driving and speed limits, etc., have been made in this House in the past 20 years? We have finally realised, five years after the establishment of ComReg, that organisations of that nature will fail if they are not given strong enforcement powers. Words rarely fail me, but we are getting close to itnow.

The Minister of State stated baldly that "the regrettable fact remains that some of the major operators either do not provide data for some quarters or fail to supply any of the data that ComReg requires". That sounds like cowboyism. The major participants in the market have been given something that is a privilege, particularly in the area of mobile telephony. They are allowed to use the radio spectrum, which is a limited resource. They have responded by telling the State regulator to get lost. They do not tell ComReg what it wants to know. I started to wonder about the country when I read an astonishing statement in the Minister of State's script. I refer to his announcement that ComReg "is planning the introduction of a fully automated data capture system that will allow operators to submit data online." It seems it is impossible to submit data on-line to the regulator of our telecommunications system, which is supposed to be ensuring the whole system is modernised. I presume one can submit data in paper form only. If the communications regulator has not yet enabled itself to be communicated with electronically, what does that say about the vision within that organisation? Such complacency suggests to me that the whole thing is a mess.

I was glad to hear Senator White quoting my classmate in college, Mr. Martin Cronin, who is now the chief executive of Forfás, about the need for broadband services. I am sick of talking about the need for broadband. This country's failure to provide such basic infrastructure is its biggest problem. The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland has stated bluntly that 40% or more of its US executives do not want to hold meetings in Ireland — they think it is too difficult to get around this country because of the state of its roads. It has said the absence of a reliable——