Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I thank the Seanad for passing what is important public interest legislation focused on protecting people who have been scammed via their mobile phone operations. This is a very real issue. It involved the largest volume of correspondence on my desk, which was often from young people who were inappropriately dealt with by commercial organisations. What we have done today is to give the State the powers to fight back to protect those consumers, which is very important.

Second, and crucially, we have given in the Bill a key development role to the development of broadband in this country, especially outside our cities, and to use the infrastructure we have, including the road network, to get fibre to every town and county. This is crucial for the social and economic development of the country. I very much welcome being able to provide that in the legislation and look forward to the relevant agencies putting it into practice and providing ducting.

I thank my officials, who have worked very hard, correctly and well in preparing the legislation. It has changed quite significantly as it has gone through both Houses of the Oireachtas, which is appropriate. We have listened to some of the concerns and ideas coming from the Opposition. I look forward to sending it on to the President and putting it into effect.