Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Senator Horkan.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute and thank the Minister of State for setting out the position in the Bill. Since I am short of time, I will ask a couple of questions. We have seen the electronic communications sector develop so rapidly in the past ten years. There is obviously such a need to change the existing framework. We have been notified to the European Court of Justice for not transposing the legislation, as have other member states. Have we learned any lessons from that? Is there an issue within the Department that needs to be addressed? We should not be dragging our heels on this, particularly because we have such an important technological position, with some of the top communications companies based here. We set ourselves up as a zone for economic development based on this. Could this be considered?

I am conscious that there are several other aspects of this Bill to be considered, particularly its inclusion of the capacity to identify high-risk vendors. The Bill refers to being aligned with the principles of the EU toolbox for 5G security. It is not that I have concerns but it is worth identifying the potential for some blocs to identify companies for political and commercial purposes. In this regard, we often see a battle between the East and West. Europe has its own views on certain companies. We will have to be seen to be very independent, with the effect that whatever process is in place to identify the companies is not just taking the word of other countries and jurisdictions for which we have a lot of respect and with which we engage a lot; we will still need to have a high level of independence in our approach. I will ask the Minister of State, maybe at a later stage, to confirm the position in this regard. He has talked about amendments in this regard. It is really important because we have an economic interest in attracting foreign investment to this country. All the top companies from right across the sector are based here. Even some of the companies on others’ blacklists are here. We will have to ensure that we do a really deep dive in our analysis of any company before we set it apart.

How long does the Minister of State believe it will take to dissolve the Digital Hub Development Agency? Are there issues he believes might delay this? If he has identified anything in this regard, he might share it with us. Since we are talking about the dissolution of the agency, it is worth noting that a former short-term Member of this House, Mr. Paul Kavanagh, was one of the inspirational people or drivers behind it.

On the An Post side, I am pleased a legislative framework is being put in place in respect of the provision of money to the post office network, but I have long argued for and advocated the putting in place of a universal service obligation for the network rather than providing money piecemeal on an ongoing basis. That is something we might talk about later.