Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I am not referring to the roads but to the inability of Government to react quickly and flexibly and to see where the world is going. The Government believes that the old model is the new model but the old model is out of date.

I am more than a little worried about the emergency service. I can understand the Government's position in this case as Eircom, apparently, does not regard itself as having any public service obligations and it is trying to get out of those that it has. Given that the same agency which is supposed to be responsible for the quality of cable television services, the customer service quality of the mobile phone services and many other services, will now take responsibility for the quality of the emergency service, people have cause to be nervous in terms of customer service.

This is a welcome Bill and would have been a lot more welcome four years ago when it was needed. At the core of the Bill is the belief that there is some mythological form of competition which will miraculously and suddenly give us all high quality broadband. I repeat that it will not unless somebody and the State takes charge. I do not care whether this is a public private partnership——