Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The Minister is not being fair. My first statement was that I do not have an objection to access to the infrastructure if everything else is fair. I will prove my good offices in this regard by noting my lack of support, for instance, for the Communications Workers Union when it had a problem with the on bundling of telecommunications lines. I have no problem with access but with fairness or the balance of the access. It is not intellectually fair to respond to me by talking about the importance of access because we agree on that point. The problem is created by how they get in to have the access. The issues raised by my three colleagues have been on the basis of what happens before and after the event. It also is not correct for the Minister to refer back to the postal network definitions because section 28(9) does not refer to the cost of the postal network. One should be clear about this point. It is a complicated sentence, but it refers to the costs "avoided" by the postal service by granting this new service to the applicant, and it refers to "granting such access". It is the cost and the saving related to the access that can be taken into account. The postal network itself cannot be taken into account. Maybe the Minister intended this to mean something else, and if he were to change section 28(9) to reflect what he said, I would withdraw my amendment to the section. If he takes into account the cost of the network, there would still be issues for me such as access to the GPO and various other things that should be part of our culture, but I could live with that. However, it is not fair to say that this is a level playing pitch, because it is not. The commission can take into account the cost that is avoided by the fact that there is a new customer going into the market, as well as the network costs involved in granting such access. The commission can take these two costs into account, but not the total costs, or the average cost, or the cost per letter box, mile, county or whatever.

I am completely in favour of competition. The way to get the best level of service from the public sector is to have competition. My problem is that I believe this is unbalanced as it stands and is not fair.