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Each speech listed here is an edited speech. If you'd like to see the speech or debate in full, please go to the Oireachtas website and click on "Seanad Eireann" and then "Seanad Debates" and click on the relevant date as listed with each speech on this page.
RTÉ Broadcasting (31/01/08)
Motion on Broadband (12/12/07)
Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2006 (03/04/07)
Smart Telecom and Eircom Privatisation (04/10/06)
Broadband (27/09/06)
RTÉ Broadcasting
31/01/08 - The question of the reception abroad of RTE broadcasts is an issue that I have touched on many times in the House. I have a file, two feet high, built up over the past 15 years relating to people looking for short and long wave as well as satellite reception and arguing that RTE is the only national radio station in Europe which is encrypted on satellite, etc. I appreciate the reasons behind Senator Labhrás Ó Murchú’s point yesterday, but I do not agree with his solution. I believe the solution is not and does not need to be to maintain medium wave, which is not a very good reception.
Rather than focusing on RTE maintaining the medium wave service, the Government in its support for emigrant groups in the UK, should provide a long wave radio service to them from Ireland. It would mean they could get a clearer reception, the cost would be small and this is something we could do. We might also examine the possibilities of broadband radio, which is now available for less than €100 and is easier to use than an ordinary radio. … We should support emigrant communities in making better radio reception available rather than trying to maintain the current system.
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Motion on Broadband
12/12/07 - Where does one start with this? I will start by saying that the Government amendment is quite appalling. The fact that, with a straight face, the Government side is asking the Seanad to commend the Government on its work in this area and for its determination to deliver broadband to those areas of Ireland where it is currently uneconomic is appalling. I do not know how any serious punter on that side of the House could have allowed this amendment to go through.
This issue is not being taken seriously. We talk about competitiveness and productivity. Not having access to broadband is like asking workers to work with one hand manacled to the other.
I live maybe 16 or 17 miles from here, which is the centre of power. I cannot get broadband at home. broadband. … As the Minister of State is aware, I am a person who has used technology every day for about 16 or 17 years. I use it all the time. The Minister of State will be aware that I do a podcast in his local area every week. I have a house in a small town in rural France. It is easier for me to send a podcast to Counties Clare and Wexford or elsewhere from a holiday home in a rural area of France than it is from my main residence in County Dublin. There is something daft about that.
Most of the people here represent or live in rural parts of the country. This is killing regional Ireland. It is hitting education in regional Ireland. Every year for the past four years, the Government has talked about rolling out broadband to every primary and post-primary school in the country. Most people think it has been done. It is same problem, namely, connectivity. Schools are not connected so our children are being held back.
Do people in Government recognise that our productivity in the future will be in intellectual add-on? We will not be making bits and pieces in factories anymore. They can do that more cheaply in any part of the world. It is all about intellectual add-on and the knowledge economy. We are at the bottom of the league when it comes to the knowledge that is coming down those pipes on what we used to call the information superhighway but which we now call the World Wide Web or Internet. We used to be proud of our position on these matters but this is no longer the case.
When the Minister of State wore his previous hat, he had to deal with issues like the retraining of workforces and finding new employment for the people in Shannon or elsewhere. A major part of that involves people doing courses via broadband in order that they can retrain, build on their knowledge and get better qualifications. The involvement of outsourcing must be also considered. I visited a Gaeltacht area in Mayo where people wanted to set up an interpretation facility for Gaeilge in Brussels. They had to move the facility in order to get reception.
The day I heard about metropolitan area networks I knew it was the most stupid decision ever made. What were we doing? We do not want metropolitan area networks. Every home in the country needs broadband. The Government should lease satellite space and soak the country in broadband. It should be available to everyone for a reasonable price. That could be effected with one decision. The idea of shooting down lines, fibre optics, cutting up roads and setting up masts is not necessary anymore because technology has moved on. We should recognise this.
There will be a row about unbundling and the quality of lines. Eircom will not bring the quality of its lines up to DSL level because someone else will lease the line to sell the service at a cheaper rate. There is no incentive for Eircom to do this. The only way to improve the situation is by satellite provision immediately to every part of the country. The Government should lease the space, give us an option and a future and bring us into the new century.
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Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2006
03/04/07 - The question of Irish people living abroad accessing Irish broadcasting is a matter of some significance in respect of which the Minister has been supportive in his comments during the years. I am trying to establish the situation regarding access to Irish radio and television for people living elsewhere in Europe, which are shown on the Sky digital system, the Astra satellite. People with digital dishes and decoders and who are living anywhere in the satellite’s footprint in Europe can tune into RTE Radio 1, Radio 2, Lyric FM and Raidió na Gaeltachta without paying Sky. The reception is clear. Recently, Newstalk may have been added.
People’s access abroad does not concern the amendment precisely, but RTE television is encrypted on Sky. Someone without a Sky card who is living in Brussels with a dish on his or her roof and a satellite decoder can tune into free-to-air BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, BBC 4, ITV 1, ITV 2, ITV 3, ITV 4 and the broadcasts of many small countries, such as Cyprus and Malta, but RTE is encrypted. This is a significant loss. ….. It is completely wrong that RTE is encrypted in certain areas. I have written to the RTE Authority to ask why that is the case. The Minister explained it once by talking about copyright issues.
I want to make clear what I am talking about. I accept that if RTE buys .. a…television series for a price that is based on this country’s population, it would not be able to make that programme available to people throughout Europe without running into difficulties. ….. I am not concerned about such programmes, however. I would like home-made programmes like “Prime Time” and news programmes, in respect of which no copyright law other than Irish copyright law arises, to be broadcast overseas. Not only would such broadcasts help Irish people who live abroad to keep in touch, but they would also help to sell this country to people in the wider world who want to know and hear about Ireland.
I welcome the Minister’s recent announcement that RTE is to set up a new channel for emigrants, taking over from what Tara Television was doing when it broadcast into the UK eight or nine years ago. Will the new channel be encrypted? Will it be available on a single platform only? One of the amendments under discussion relates to the need to ensure that television services are available to all of Ireland. The point I am making is that we all should have the same access. This is of huge cultural importance in terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
Issues like access are important. Will the new station that is being put together by RTE be encrypted? Will people have full and easy access to it? Does the Minister acknowledge that such access is important for reasons of culture, economics and growth?
………………
The review provisions are crucially important because it is so hard to keep up with the changes in technology. One can go to the local car park and buy a card to receive various channels. A slingbox allows one to tune into television programming from Ireland on a laptop, irrespective of where in the world one is. The technology is amazing and we must keep up with the game.
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Smart Telecom and Eircom Privatisation
04/10/06) - Is the Leader prepared to arrange an open discussion in this House on the operation of the free market? I was flabbergasted yesterday to hear two decent people — Senator Leyden and a Fine Gael Senator — arguing that the decision to cut off Smart Telecom’s customers was appalling, unfair and should not have been allowed to happen. They said the Government should intervene. I thought we had that debate five or six years ago, when Eircom was privatised.
Perhaps the Minister can explain it further. We knew what was going to happen. We explained to people that there would not be broadband in Belmullet and that they could not expect to get any additional help from the State. I would like Members to understand that those who invest in Babcock & Brown by buying shares in that company — the investors could be from anywhere — do not really care whether a small business in south Dublin or a domestic household in Athlone will suddenly lose their service. That is what it is about. I would say that it is close to hypocrisy if I did not know that those who raised the issue yesterday did so with the best of intentions. I do not accuse them of that at all. We need to understand how the system works.
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Broadband
27/09/06 - The Cathaoirleach probably did not read the Government amendment very closely because he would have ruled it out of order if he had. It is an astonishing amendment. At the very least, I ask the Minister of State to remove the third section, which states: “after a late start Ireland’s rate of broadband take-up is continuing to accelerate”. That is factually incorrect. We were second last in Europe last year and in the same position this year. It is not a matter of take-up but of availability. The Minister of State should not blame the public because there is no problem with take-up when broadband is available. I live 15 miles from here, yet I cannot get broadband. I have a satellite one-way dial-up system which barely works. When I travel around the country, I find that services are hit and miss. Sometimes a 3G data card will work at 3G level but more commonly it is at GPRS or dial-up level. The situation is absolutely appalling but this amendment suggests that the Government is not committed to addressing the issue.
During the debate on the sale of Eircom, I made a similar point about the information super highway, as it was known in those days. I said that I did not see Dr. O’Reilly bringing broadband to Belmullet or Dingle because it would not be worth his while to do so. That is exactly what is happening.
It would be easy to make an always-on up and down broadband service available to every house in Ireland through satellite. I am not impressed by the municipal local area networks because they address the problem only in small towns while using a lot of unnecessary wires. We could provide broadband by satellite if we had the will to do so.
Economic growth is being inhibited and the country is being made less attractive for investors and industry. Crucially, research and development is being hindered. It is also inhibiting postgraduate, particularly postdoctoral, research that is crucial to economic growth in this country. It makes the delivery of public services more expensive and inhibits the development of e-commerce.
The European position is that the use of broadband in the delivery of public services and the development of e-commerce to allow business outsourcing, has a positive impact on regional development, traffic congestion and economic development in the regions. Ireland has signed up to this but nothing is happening because of the lack of broadband. Teleworking, growing at an extraordinary rate in Europe, is inhibited in Ireland because of the lack of broadband. It is preventing women from returning to the workforce.
Some three years ago a commitment was given that every school would be connected to broadband. It cannot happen. I agree that this can only happen through public delivery and private investment. Smart Telecom is an example of how the private sector is unable to deliver because the support structures are not available. Only 16,000 people signed up for its scheme. Smart Telecom was the only company not dependent on Eircom, which is why it needs support.
Some companies have received the franchise to provide broadband to a certain county. Along county borders, neighbours 100 yards away from each other cannot receive broadband from the same company. I have seen examples of this along the Dublin-Meath border.
In seconding the motion, I hope the Government will withdraw the amendment, which is totally irrelevant, and support the motion, which is in line with European demands.
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Seanad debates are available in full on the Oireachtas website
Each speech listed here is an edited speech. If you'd like to see the speech or debate in full, please go to the Oireachtas website and click on "Seanad Eireann" and then "Seanad Debates" and click on the relevant date as listed with each speech on this page.
RTÉ Broadcasting (31/01/08)
Motion on Broadband (12/12/07)
Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2006 (03/04/07)
Smart Telecom and Eircom Privatisation (04/10/06)
Broadband (27/09/06)
RTÉ Broadcasting
31/01/08 - The question of the reception abroad of RTE broadcasts is an issue that I have touched on many times in the House. I have a file, two feet high, built up over the past 15 years relating to people looking for short and long wave as well as satellite reception and arguing that RTE is the only national radio station in Europe which is encrypted on satellite, etc. I appreciate the reasons behind Senator Labhrás Ó Murchú’s point yesterday, but I do not agree with his solution. I believe the solution is not and does not need to be to maintain medium wave, which is not a very good reception.
Rather than focusing on RTE maintaining the medium wave service, the Government in its support for emigrant groups in the UK, should provide a long wave radio service to them from Ireland. It would mean they could get a clearer reception, the cost would be small and this is something we could do. We might also examine the possibilities of broadband radio, which is now available for less than €100 and is easier to use than an ordinary radio. … We should support emigrant communities in making better radio reception available rather than trying to maintain the current system.
Back to top of the page
Motion on Broadband
12/12/07 - Where does one start with this? I will start by saying that the Government amendment is quite appalling. The fact that, with a straight face, the Government side is asking the Seanad to commend the Government on its work in this area and for its determination to deliver broadband to those areas of Ireland where it is currently uneconomic is appalling. I do not know how any serious punter on that side of the House could have allowed this amendment to go through.
This issue is not being taken seriously. We talk about competitiveness and productivity. Not having access to broadband is like asking workers to work with one hand manacled to the other.
I live maybe 16 or 17 miles from here, which is the centre of power. I cannot get broadband at home. broadband. … As the Minister of State is aware, I am a person who has used technology every day for about 16 or 17 years. I use it all the time. The Minister of State will be aware that I do a podcast in his local area every week. I have a house in a small town in rural France. It is easier for me to send a podcast to Counties Clare and Wexford or elsewhere from a holiday home in a rural area of France than it is from my main residence in County Dublin. There is something daft about that.
Most of the people here represent or live in rural parts of the country. This is killing regional Ireland. It is hitting education in regional Ireland. Every year for the past four years, the Government has talked about rolling out broadband to every primary and post-primary school in the country. Most people think it has been done. It is same problem, namely, connectivity. Schools are not connected so our children are being held back.
Do people in Government recognise that our productivity in the future will be in intellectual add-on? We will not be making bits and pieces in factories anymore. They can do that more cheaply in any part of the world. It is all about intellectual add-on and the knowledge economy. We are at the bottom of the league when it comes to the knowledge that is coming down those pipes on what we used to call the information superhighway but which we now call the World Wide Web or Internet. We used to be proud of our position on these matters but this is no longer the case.
When the Minister of State wore his previous hat, he had to deal with issues like the retraining of workforces and finding new employment for the people in Shannon or elsewhere. A major part of that involves people doing courses via broadband in order that they can retrain, build on their knowledge and get better qualifications. The involvement of outsourcing must be also considered. I visited a Gaeltacht area in Mayo where people wanted to set up an interpretation facility for Gaeilge in Brussels. They had to move the facility in order to get reception.
The day I heard about metropolitan area networks I knew it was the most stupid decision ever made. What were we doing? We do not want metropolitan area networks. Every home in the country needs broadband. The Government should lease satellite space and soak the country in broadband. It should be available to everyone for a reasonable price. That could be effected with one decision. The idea of shooting down lines, fibre optics, cutting up roads and setting up masts is not necessary anymore because technology has moved on. We should recognise this.
There will be a row about unbundling and the quality of lines. Eircom will not bring the quality of its lines up to DSL level because someone else will lease the line to sell the service at a cheaper rate. There is no incentive for Eircom to do this. The only way to improve the situation is by satellite provision immediately to every part of the country. The Government should lease the space, give us an option and a future and bring us into the new century.
Back to top of the page
Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2006
03/04/07 - The question of Irish people living abroad accessing Irish broadcasting is a matter of some significance in respect of which the Minister has been supportive in his comments during the years. I am trying to establish the situation regarding access to Irish radio and television for people living elsewhere in Europe, which are shown on the Sky digital system, the Astra satellite. People with digital dishes and decoders and who are living anywhere in the satellite’s footprint in Europe can tune into RTE Radio 1, Radio 2, Lyric FM and Raidió na Gaeltachta without paying Sky. The reception is clear. Recently, Newstalk may have been added.
People’s access abroad does not concern the amendment precisely, but RTE television is encrypted on Sky. Someone without a Sky card who is living in Brussels with a dish on his or her roof and a satellite decoder can tune into free-to-air BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, BBC 4, ITV 1, ITV 2, ITV 3, ITV 4 and the broadcasts of many small countries, such as Cyprus and Malta, but RTE is encrypted. This is a significant loss. ….. It is completely wrong that RTE is encrypted in certain areas. I have written to the RTE Authority to ask why that is the case. The Minister explained it once by talking about copyright issues.
I want to make clear what I am talking about. I accept that if RTE buys .. a…television series for a price that is based on this country’s population, it would not be able to make that programme available to people throughout Europe without running into difficulties. ….. I am not concerned about such programmes, however. I would like home-made programmes like “Prime Time” and news programmes, in respect of which no copyright law other than Irish copyright law arises, to be broadcast overseas. Not only would such broadcasts help Irish people who live abroad to keep in touch, but they would also help to sell this country to people in the wider world who want to know and hear about Ireland.
I welcome the Minister’s recent announcement that RTE is to set up a new channel for emigrants, taking over from what Tara Television was doing when it broadcast into the UK eight or nine years ago. Will the new channel be encrypted? Will it be available on a single platform only? One of the amendments under discussion relates to the need to ensure that television services are available to all of Ireland. The point I am making is that we all should have the same access. This is of huge cultural importance in terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
Issues like access are important. Will the new station that is being put together by RTE be encrypted? Will people have full and easy access to it? Does the Minister acknowledge that such access is important for reasons of culture, economics and growth?
………………
The review provisions are crucially important because it is so hard to keep up with the changes in technology. One can go to the local car park and buy a card to receive various channels. A slingbox allows one to tune into television programming from Ireland on a laptop, irrespective of where in the world one is. The technology is amazing and we must keep up with the game.
Back to top of the page
Smart Telecom and Eircom Privatisation
04/10/06) - Is the Leader prepared to arrange an open discussion in this House on the operation of the free market? I was flabbergasted yesterday to hear two decent people — Senator Leyden and a Fine Gael Senator — arguing that the decision to cut off Smart Telecom’s customers was appalling, unfair and should not have been allowed to happen. They said the Government should intervene. I thought we had that debate five or six years ago, when Eircom was privatised.
Perhaps the Minister can explain it further. We knew what was going to happen. We explained to people that there would not be broadband in Belmullet and that they could not expect to get any additional help from the State. I would like Members to understand that those who invest in Babcock & Brown by buying shares in that company — the investors could be from anywhere — do not really care whether a small business in south Dublin or a domestic household in Athlone will suddenly lose their service. That is what it is about. I would say that it is close to hypocrisy if I did not know that those who raised the issue yesterday did so with the best of intentions. I do not accuse them of that at all. We need to understand how the system works.
Back to top of the page
Broadband
27/09/06 - The Cathaoirleach probably did not read the Government amendment very closely because he would have ruled it out of order if he had. It is an astonishing amendment. At the very least, I ask the Minister of State to remove the third section, which states: “after a late start Ireland’s rate of broadband take-up is continuing to accelerate”. That is factually incorrect. We were second last in Europe last year and in the same position this year. It is not a matter of take-up but of availability. The Minister of State should not blame the public because there is no problem with take-up when broadband is available. I live 15 miles from here, yet I cannot get broadband. I have a satellite one-way dial-up system which barely works. When I travel around the country, I find that services are hit and miss. Sometimes a 3G data card will work at 3G level but more commonly it is at GPRS or dial-up level. The situation is absolutely appalling but this amendment suggests that the Government is not committed to addressing the issue.
During the debate on the sale of Eircom, I made a similar point about the information super highway, as it was known in those days. I said that I did not see Dr. O’Reilly bringing broadband to Belmullet or Dingle because it would not be worth his while to do so. That is exactly what is happening.
It would be easy to make an always-on up and down broadband service available to every house in Ireland through satellite. I am not impressed by the municipal local area networks because they address the problem only in small towns while using a lot of unnecessary wires. We could provide broadband by satellite if we had the will to do so.
Economic growth is being inhibited and the country is being made less attractive for investors and industry. Crucially, research and development is being hindered. It is also inhibiting postgraduate, particularly postdoctoral, research that is crucial to economic growth in this country. It makes the delivery of public services more expensive and inhibits the development of e-commerce.
The European position is that the use of broadband in the delivery of public services and the development of e-commerce to allow business outsourcing, has a positive impact on regional development, traffic congestion and economic development in the regions. Ireland has signed up to this but nothing is happening because of the lack of broadband. Teleworking, growing at an extraordinary rate in Europe, is inhibited in Ireland because of the lack of broadband. It is preventing women from returning to the workforce.
Some three years ago a commitment was given that every school would be connected to broadband. It cannot happen. I agree that this can only happen through public delivery and private investment. Smart Telecom is an example of how the private sector is unable to deliver because the support structures are not available. Only 16,000 people signed up for its scheme. Smart Telecom was the only company not dependent on Eircom, which is why it needs support.
Some companies have received the franchise to provide broadband to a certain county. Along county borders, neighbours 100 yards away from each other cannot receive broadband from the same company. I have seen examples of this along the Dublin-Meath border.
In seconding the motion, I hope the Government will withdraw the amendment, which is totally irrelevant, and support the motion, which is in line with European demands.
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Seanad debates are available in full on the Oireachtas website