Eamon Ryan - ComReg's bitch

damien

Minster Ryan Congratulates ComReg on the 10th Anniversary of their Establishment

Eamon Ryan T.D., spoke glowingly of the progress the organisation has made since their establishment in June 1997 as the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR).

Most importantly of all perhaps, ComReg must continue their role in consumer advocacy through features such as their award winning callcosts website ( www.callcosts.ie ),” noted the Minister.

Consumers have been screwed over by the way Comreg are ruining the market. I thought John Gormley was the shoe-in for biggest political hypocrite but Ryan is close competition now.

mike65

*cough*

Might we cut him some slack as he seeks to fool comreg into thinking he is thier bitch?

Mike.

lucernarian

I don't think enough slack can be given for that blatant ass-licking.

damien

And here we have the Minister use Dempsey's template on broadband stats. Look it seems they were not measured properly, that's all. Move along now.

watty

I got the Irish Times from a regular reader and have removed the 4 page ComReg spread as a souvenir.

It's disappointing.

Sponge Bob

The times has it uses, it kept the midges off me Asparagus .

clohamon

mike65 wrote:

*cough*

Might we cut him some slack as he seeks to fool comreg into thinking he is thier bitch?

Mike.

Who needs fooling. The last time I checked the Oireachtas was sovereign.

Mr_Man

It looks like the greens have sold their souls for the price of a ministerial merc. For a party which claims to have morals they weren't long in burying them beneath the same double-speak and pure unadulterated bull**** that their FF puppet masters have been using for so long.

Any hope for a real improvement in the BB situation in Ireland is gone for the next five years, unless some technology emerges that bypasses Eircom's stranglehold.

M.

thebman

Comreg are a disgrace of an organisation but the minister can't really come out and say that.

In all likelyhood he has sold his morals away but we should wait until we see how he handles a real issue instead of this PR stuff.

lucernarian

Indeed he isn't in a great position to publicly criticise the regulator, but he could also have publicly thanked John Timmons and Damien Mulley of IrelandOffline for the work they did in the public domain (radio shows and newspaper articles etc.).

Now that IO is finished, he could have offered some sort of thanks. He didn't even have to admit that they did more for consumers than ComReg did. Just a token of respect.

SkepticOne

I would pay no heed whatsoever to what Ryan or his party said while in opposition. The job while in opposition is to say whatever it is people want to hear regardless of practicality or advisability. I doubt if you asked people on the street what Ryan stands for in the communications arena anyone could actually tell you.

Even now that he has a tiny bit of power, I would pay very little heed to what he says. It is what he does that counts, and it will take several months to determine what he is going to be like.

The press release about ComReg, I would view as simply establishing good relations with the regulator. A good thing, imo, if he is to have a positive influence over them in the coming years.

I think it is very important that people express their views if they feel strongly about an issue. Eamon Ryan can be contacted at eamon.ryan@oireachtas.ie

lucernarian

That's great if he does read or reply to emails. I sent one about 2 weeks ago but got no reply or adknowledgement of receipt.

thebman

You can request read reciepts. He probably has someone who reads them for him anyway and passes on the important ones.

His own personal spam filter. I bet its named Stephen and chained up in a corner. He probably doesn't need it but some other minister hired someone to do it at some point and now that is that persons job so nobody dares take it away from them.

I agree with not paying attention to what he said in opposition or what he says now. It is what he does that will define what type of politican he is. If in 6 months time he is still comreg's bitch then we can send him an email with his title in it. Not that he'll ever read it but at least his spam filter will get a good laugh out of it.

Dangger

It appears (odd that its out on a Sunday mind you) that Minister Ryan is taking some action recently.

The Communications Minister, Eamon Ryan, has increased the penalties for non-compliance with ComReg decisions.

From now on, companies that do not obey rulings by the Communications Regulator will have to pay a fine of 10 per cent of their turnover or €5m.

Minister Ryan said the move will help ComReg enforce their decisions and is an important step towards ensuring fair and open competition in the communications sector.

From independent.ie

damien

Not really. This is Dempsey's Law and he is just signing the order to give the powers to ComReg. Maybe this is the more rope that is needed for them to hand themselves? Time will tell.

Liam Byrne

Penalties are one thing, but when you've got a situation like last year when ComReg actually thanked eircom for helping out in the fiasco with Smart that eircom had helped to create, then ComReg's rules and aren't worth s**t!

What's required are:
1) Get the core land-line network back from the privatised eircom; it's being done for Dublin's M50, it can be done for the country's land-lines
2) Get ComReg to objectively look at business practices which are making competition unviable
3) Get ComReg to force eircom to implement GLUMP (including a speedy, transparent and realistic transfer time) within a defined deadline (e.g. next month), complete with serious penalties for every day that this deadline is met
4) THEN get ComReg to police things properly, and stop licking eircom's ass, and we might actually make some progress

zod

Mr. Eamon Ryan:

As Eircom has been scrutinised by so many groups, I am unsure whether there are many with which Members are unfamiliar. Does the Minister of State not agree that while he has stated that the State would not buy Eircom, no one has suggested that it should. Babcock & Brown appear to propose splitting the company in two. Hence, while Eircom would continue to act as a supply and mobile telephone company, the network would be available. Is there a possibility of buying back the wires rather than buying Eircom? Such a network could then be operated on an open basis for companies like Eircom and other suppliers. Is that a possibility?
The Minister of State noted that there might be another purchaser. However, I understand that Babcock & Brown's shareholding is sufficient for it to be in a commanding position to determine whether another bid would be successful. This makes the possibility of another purchaser extremely unlikely.
Does the Minister of State agree that effectively, at present the State is engaged in establishing its own independent separate network? He lauded the significant financial investment which has been made in alternative fibre networks, very little of which has been lit up. To an extent, this investment went against some of the recommendations of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. In terms of any alternative network, it did not make sense to replicate fibre networks that were already in place. Hence, rather than spending hundreds of millions by building an alternative network and adopting the Minister's "Project Dingle dell", it might be worthwhile for the State to consider setting up a single fibre optic network on which all companies could co-exist. Is Ireland big enough to have two fibre optic networks? That does not seem to make economic sense. If Babcock and Brown buys the company and divests itself of the network, it might be worth considering the possibility that it would be cheaper to buy it than to build our own separate network.

damien

Seems e-Net also think Eamo has clipped wings and think his past statements on the MANs are just that, in the past: http://www.yourtechstuff.com/techwire/2007/07/broadband-boss-.html

Unperturbed, according to Conal Henry, E-Net's chief executive (pictured). "I think the Minister may have changed his thinking a bit on this,"

Tom Young

I found Ryan to be the best sitting TD on the Join Sub-Committee for Communications.

Simon Coveney a close second, but a little less articulate.

Its likely his speech was written for the event by some secretary. I'd like to see him given a chance. He's young and has the knowledge and energy to achieve things.

He's also no stranger to the key players and indeed commentators in the industry.