Martin Brady (Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following:

--recognising the importance of rural Ireland to the social fabric of the nation;

--recognising the level of isolation felt by many residents in rural Ireland;

--recognising the benefits in social communication brought about by Broadband access; and

--recognising the importance of broadband availability for the setting up and running of rural based businesses,

welcomes:

(i) the major expansion in broadband penetration in recent years, especially in mobile broadband which is especially suitable for rural areas;

(ii) the various Government interventions in broadband to date which have led to improved choice, quality and price of services;

(iii) the National Broadband Scheme which will make broadband available in those parts of the country not currently served; and

(iv) the proposed use of EU funding, available under the European Economic Recovery Plan, to address any outstanding unserved rural premises.

I welcome the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan. He is a person for whom I have great admiration because with this Minister what one sees is what one gets, and he knows his brief from A to Z. He is a genuine person.

As regards broadband, I have listened to Senator O'Reilly and although we are from the same part of the country, Breffni, we do not agree on everything. Commonsense must prevail. Broadband, as the Minister has outlined, is very important, particularly in terms of investment, as Senator Hannigan has said. The Acting Chairman, Senator Feargal Quinn, was chairman of An Post and he must be given great credit for the job he did there, because he brought it to what it is today. He brought the staff and management with him and revitalised the company, bringing it in from the dark ages to a modern era in society. I believe An Post is a success today due in large measure to Senator Quinn's input, and that must be recognised.

Telecom Éireann was the main supplier of telecommunications in Ireland. It was built up with taxpayers' money from the old Posts and Telegraphs, P & T, days. One must give credit to the former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds. I remember working in the old P & T, when people waited two or three years in Dublin for a telephone. Down the country one could be waiting seven years. If one was lucky to be well in with a Minister, he or she could give a ministerial directive and one could get a telephone as a result. To get a telephone at that time, 1972, it cost £160 for a connection. There was high, low and all types of risks. One might have had to pay €2,000 deposit if one was in the film business, for example, or something like that which was deemed to be high risk and two years' rental had to be paid in advance. We spent most of our time there telling people the reasons we could not give them the telephones we were providing. Leaving that aside, I shall return to broadband.

Broadband is not the only issue in terms of telecommunications. It is very important, of course, not just for business. It is important for people with disabilities who do remote working and so on. As Senator O'Reilly has outlined, there are many parts of rural areas where one cannot get broadband for technical reasons. I know the Minister has said there is no difference as regards wireless broadband, but there is. It will cost three times the amount, as I have established.

A mistake was made in previous years, by the Government of which I am a member, in privatising Telecom. The day has come when we have to take control. In all aspects of telecommunications there is a large amount of copper cable in the ground, which cost an astronomical amount of taxpayers' money to instal, but which is absolutely useless. Why was the proper infrastructure not put in place along the way? This is my overview as to why that did not happen.

When I was in Telecom, I had great admiration for Mr. David Begg, the then general secretary of the Communications Workers Union. We held marches on the streets, with banners saying, "Fat cats, hands off Telecom Éireann". I was president of a small union at the time and participated in that campaign. We resolved that no way would Telecom Éireann be taken over. Not too long ago, however, the fat cats resolved to find a way around those objections by the union activists. They decided to dangle a little carrot and give the workers something. The unions opted to go along with this, deciding it was not such a bad idea. The result was the employees share ownership plan, ESOP. The union people saw this as advantageous and decided to get on the gravy train, as did everybody. One union person ended up getting €3 million a year. He resigned recently and another person who resigned from Telecom and is now in his place is getting an enormous salary plus a pension. Everybody got on the gravy train, but the customer suffered.

The present incumbent is the fifth owner of the enterprise since privatisation. They all went in, pillaged the place, put nothing back by way of infrastructure and ran away. They knew nothing about the business except how to pay themselves. With the €3 million a year, there were bonuses for non-performance.

If one wants to get a telephone in Dublin today, it takes six months. If one wants a telephone fixed, unless one knows somebody in Eircom, God knows when it will happen. To sum up, the question is how we can take control. Eircom is the main telecommunications provider, leasing its lines to competitors, as it is obliged to do. The only way to fix Eircom is to nationalise it, as we do with the banks, take it over and control it because we will never have control the way things are going. I thank Senator Quinn for his input into An Post. I worked there and he is still remembered for the good work he did.