Letter from Mary O'Rourke

Ruu_Old

Emailed some time ago to the Minster for Public Enterprise regarding the net in Ireland, dont know who wrote this, probably a civil servant, i dont know how these things work, here it is:

21 January 2002

Dear Ruairi,

Thank you for your email of 30 December, 2001 concerning Internet access for the consumer in Ireland.

My Department’s policy is to facilitate the rollout of state of the art infrastructures and to provide the legislative and regulatory environment which will serve to make a major contribution to sustained macro-economic growth and the realisation of competitively priced, high quality services.

The regulation of flat rate dial-up Internet access is a matter for the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR). While the ODTR has implemented a framework to enable such access to occur, ultimately, it requires the initiative of commercial operators to develop offerings in this regard.

Low cost, high speed internet access is a key element of our communications policy. Under the National Development Plan (2000 - 2006), €200 million of public funds have been earmarked to leverage investment in advanced communications infrastructure and services. The focus of this investment will be to support investment in communications and electronic commerce infrastructure, systems and services in less developed areas.

The Plan has as one of its objectives “the development of the Irish communications sector so that it ranks in the top decile of OECD countries in terms of service range, quality availability and price”.

The Plan also aims to improve the efficiency of the regulatory framework, thereby “creating a favourable climate for the development of electronic commerce”. My proposals in relation to regulatory reform of the communications sector are designed to ensure that the regulatory conditions in Ireland are effective in stimulating a competitive market for communications services, including Internet services. In this regard the draft Communications (Regulation) Bill will enhance the regulatory framework so as to further facilitate the development of the sector while ensuring that appropriate elements of the public interest are taken into account. It is planned to publish the Bill in early 2002.

In addition, according to the EU Commission’s recently published Seventh Report on the Implementation of the Telecommunications Regulatory Package, the ODTR has taken several steps to support dial-up internet access and in particular it has opened two new non-geographic codes for use in accessing internet service providers (ISPs) in March 2001.

I hope this answers any concerns you might have on this issue and appreciate the trouble you have taken in getting in touch with me.

With best wishes

Yours sincerely

Mary O’Rourke, T.D.
Minister for Public Enterprise

GoneShootin

Yours sincerely

Please place name here
Minister for Your Area

i would doubt it was a personal renidition to you email. perhapcs in too much of a cynic, but this has to be a template

Ruu_Old

yea i know, its probably someone in the office or something, a civil servant perhaps. Interesting tho, the €200 million, where the hell has that gone to?
"The regulation of flat rate dial-up Internet access is a matter for the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR)."
What good is the ODTR, when they fob u off with more excuses. Tho there is a great deal of blame with the telcos.

dahamsta

Some of the €200m is presumably gone and going into Esat's Local Loop Unbundling program, as part of the National Development Plan. Their rollout is being subsidised by a third.

adam

Ruu_Old

Thats possible, i wonder if they'd loan me some of that €200 million , i could start up a ting isp with that

ando

While the ODTR has implemented a framework to enable such access to occur, ultimately, it requires the initiative of commercial operators to develop offerings in this regard

Oh yeah, thats great ... they make up a 1893 number or whatever, and leave it at that .... I mean, FFS what the hell are they upto. They know how important Flat Rate is to a countries economy, and this is all their prepared to do AND leave it like that !!!!
This attitude by the ODTR has been the same now regarding dial up Flat Rate for months, if not years..... it has to change, it just has to

MarcusGarvey

"The regulation of flat rate dial-up Internet access is a matter for the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation "

.. that we as a government gave fsck all power to, in order to bring about broadband for the masses.....

pete

Just on the subject of who wrote the reply - I can tell you right now that it is highly unlikely that Mary O'Rourke is even remotely aware of the existence of your letter.

All correspondence sent to Ministers is received by Civil Servants, is opened by Civil Servants, is read by Civil Servants and is replied to by Civil Servants.

Occasionally - very occasionally - will a Minister's Private Secretary (also a Civil Servant) decide that a letter needs to be shown to a Minister. But even in these cases, it's still a Civil Servant who drafts the reply which is submitted for the Ministers approval before it gets issued.

Ministers come and Ministers go, but the Civil Servants are the ones who know what's going on. A Ministerial signature is not so much their signature - it's more of a Departmental seal, if you know what I mean. The Minister, as the political head of the Department, signs the letter on behalf of the Department (in fact their signature is normally rubber stamped onto each letter by a Civil Servant) and not on behalf of themselves. Of course, an exception might occur when there's an overlap between constituency interests and the specific area of Ministerial responsibility.

What I'm getting at here is that you'll probably have more success writing to your local TD(s) than you will writing to a specific Minister. Even better - contact their constituency offices and go to their clinics and try to get past their handlers. Not physically run around them, obviously but try to persuade them of the importance of the issue.

Sorry for rambling.

pete

Ruu_Old

True points, the ODTR has become a lauging stock. When somethings reported, its the telco's fault, and then the telco doesnt have a problem. The ODTR have supposedly setup a framework but have they carried it out? no, not to any benefit to anyone. Blaming telecoms for not coming forward isnt the answer either. I'd like to see this framework, to see what exactly they have set out to do.

Ruu_Old

I know it wasnt Mary O'Rourke. Whoever wrote the reply to my mail didnt really take anything into account of what is really going on today, thats plainly obvious. On the mention of the local T.D, im getting places in getting a meeting with the local constituency T.D, Johnny Brady in Navan, so i'll draft up some stuff. and i can see where it goes from there

BoneCollector

This is all just Hot air.
There is no real work being done and this is just political speak that says nothing except "where looking into it!"

you notice it says 2002-2006?
this mean you have to wait this long before we get anything and when we do the technology will be obsolete and the rest of the world will have moved on to bigger and better things.

Only when gov pass regulation to make! it compulsive will there actualy be any real progress.

till then we should all just forget eircom and adsl as a means for the future.

Ruu_Old

it actually says 2000-2006. Its not going to happen anytime soon, its taken long enough to get the Comm. Bill seen to, lets see what happens by Easter, when its to be published. If not then we keep plugging on til we get results. Come on be realistic, its not going to take till 2006 to get progress on the net issue.

Manic

There is an election comeing up. People will be calling to your door, people will be asking for YOUR vote. I would love to be able to say. YES i will vote for you if the following is done. And hand them a printout of what IOFFL are all about and the demands we make. Then make note of everything they say and do. So is there any chance of an IOFFL Flyer being made to hand to these people ? Lets have it.

Ruu_Old

If somone gives me a short summary i can have a go at making a flyer that ppl can download from here maybe, if no one has any objections or maybe ppl want to make they're own good idea, yes i'll vote for u BUT...and make them write it down on them little notepads they take out hehe,take ur time when talking to them, let them know everything

emmet

I have a letter from Orrin Hatch (Republican Senator in the US) after I hit a "Send a fax to Orrin Hatch" button on a web site against the watering-down of the antitrust action against Microsoft. The signature on it is very realistic indeed. I wonder do they have a fancy signing machine in the Dáil too?



Emmet.

BoneCollector

Come on be realistic, its not going to take till 2006 to get progress on the net issue.

You Wanna BET!
We all think ADSL would be the biz while satalite and T1/2/3/4 lines are or will be happening else where.
we make the comparison of dial up vers adsl, compared to what we have/not now as appose to what we could have which would be better.

Except! when we do get ADSL it will be just as obsolete as DialUp is now. (not concidering its already there!?)

Ruu_Old

I disagree...I think when we do get ADSL, it'll open up a whole new world of windows and opportunities for internet technology. It'll be easier to move on from that.