RELEASE: IrelandOffline Voices Concern on Communications Bill Redraft

dahamsta

###BEGINS###

[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE]

IRELANDOFFLINE PRESSURE GROUP VOICES CONCERN ON DILUTION OF COMMUNICATIONS BILL POWERS

CORK, IRELAND -- February 14, 2002 -- IrelandOffline, an independent organisation working to bring affordable Internet access services to Ireland, has voiced strong concerns about the recent redraft of the Communications (Regulation) Bill by the Department of Public Enterprise. One of the key initiatives of the Bill has been to introduce higher penalties for the infringement of conditions laid down for the operators of telecommunications licences. The redraft of the Communications (Regulation) Bill sets these penalties at a maximum of one million euro[1].

IrelandOffline is seriously concerned about this maximum penalty, as it believes that it will fall far short of the penalties set out in the original draft of the Bill, at the greater figure of £500,000 or 10% of annual turnover[2]. The previous fixed figure of £500,000 gives the impression that penalties have improved, but when percentages are compared on revenues of two billion euro[3], the new maximum fine of one million euro calculates to just 0.05% of turnover, as against the penalty of 10% turnover set out in the original draft.

IrelandOffline Public Relations Officer, Adam Beecher, said: "Of course, a penalty of one million euro is a vast improvement on the current situation, where the maximum fine the Regulator can levy is just £1500, but we have very serious doubts that these penalties will give the new Commission the "teeth" it needs to regulate licence holders and discourage regulatory breaches. A million Euro is a lot to you and me, but it's a drop in the ocean to an organisation of Eircom's size and might. I would suggest that they spend as much on advertising every month."

"IrelandOffline has been very supportive of the Bill up until this time, and we have been encouraging both the Government and representative organisations to push the Bill forward wherever possible. We remain convinced that the Bill is the way forward for Ireland, and are particularly supportive of the creation of a new three-person Regulatory Commission. At this stage though, we are concerned that Eircom and the Other Licenced Operators may be lobbying the Government in an attempt to seriously hobble the Bill before it gets to the President."

"With the innocence of the Irish Government on telecommunications issues, we feel they may not realise the absolute importance of stiff penalties for licence breaches, both as an appropriately severe punishment, and as a Sword of Damocles that will discourage them from breaching licencing conditions in the first place. We would hope that the incumbent Government will address this issue before the Bill goes to the Dáil for debate; and that if they do not, the Opposition will address it on behalf of IrelandOffline, it's members and the Irish people."


[1] This has been confirmed by the Department of Public Enterprise.
[2] http://www.irlgov.ie/tec/communications/comlegislation/schemeregbill2001.html
[3] The two billion euro figure provided is an approximation of current Eircom turnover.


ABOUT IRELANDOFFLINE

IrelandOffline is a voluntary organisation consisting of home and business Internet users unhappy with currently available Internet connectivity products and services. It's brief is to campaign for the rollout of flat-rate and high-speed Internet access services that are already the norm in other European countries; and to promote innovation and competition in the Irish Internet marketplace. IrelandOffline has had meetings with almost all of the key parties involved in the Internet marketplace; organised and hosted an innovative seminar in Dublin last year with these parties; and most recently organised a "Blackout" protest to highlight issues to both these parties, and the general public. The group currently represents over 1300 Internet users, and this number continues to rise.

For more information on the organisation, please visit the IrelandOffline website at http://www.irelandoffline.com


MEDIA CONTACTS

Adam Beecher
+353 (0)XX XXX-XXXX
adam@irelandoffline.org

Elana Kehoe
elana@irelandoffline.org


###ENDS###

nahdoic

Very well said. I totally agree and it's brilliant to see that the Ireland Offline committee can respond so rapidly to new developments!

Xian

Excellent work, Adam. We need a Regulator with teeth, not dentures!

(by the way, if anyone in the ODTR has dentures, I hope they'll understand I was speaking metaphorically)

o_donnel_abu

Excellent job, Adam, especially great to see it on "Breaking News" on the Ireland.com site.

Martin

LegacyUser

Fantastic piece of work. Well done to everyone involved.
especially great to see it on "Breaking News" on the Ireland.com site. Great stuff.

Stonemason

For up to the minute news :)I certainly wouldnt like to see that new amendment go through tho as IOFFL said €1 million is nothing it will still work out cheaper for them to pay the fines especialy if they just pass it on to us the customers i mean just add €1 to every bill and hey preston bill paid for by "US" again.



Stone

dahamsta

Just a quick addition: As is obvious, my "one million euro on advertising" comment was obviously something that could be questioned for accuracy (although I wouldn't be in the least surprised that it's true, given Eircom's blanket media coverage).

However, Fergus came up with a factual comparison on the Committee mailing list that I think illustrates the shortcomings of the proposed penalties quite well:

"Eircom's last pretax profit reported was 187 million. 1 million euro represents less than 2 days profit. They turn over 1 million euro approximately every 4 hours."

That says it all to me. Good man Fergus.

adam

LegacyUser

"Eircom's last pretax profit reported was 187 million. 1 million euro represents less than 2 days profit. They turn over 1 million euro approximately every 4 hours."

So a punishment of 1 Million Euro every 4 hours for their infringement of conditions laid down for the operators of telecommunications licences would be more appropriate. I bet that would hurt and make them take notice.

pete

Originally posted by dahamsta
Just a quick addition: As is obvious, my "one million euro on advertising" comment was obviously something that could be questioned for accuracy (although I wouldn't be in the least surprised that it's true, given Eircom's blanket media coverage).

Given that RTE can charge up to €10,157 (plus VAT) for one 20 second prime time TV spot, and given the amount of ads eircom ran / are running with that stupid mouse, I wouldn't be surprised if Eircom have spent well over €1m a month - maybe not every month, but still.

As we all know, advertising campaigns don't come cheap.... (isn't www.medialive.ie a great thing altogether?)

And when you factor in their sponsorship deals....

Eircom currently has three binding contracts with the FAI totalling £19m in value. These are a ten-year, £11m sponsorship deal for the FAI's proposed new 45,000 seater stadium at CityWest to be called, appropriately, Eircom Park; a ten-year, £6m sponsorship of the Irish international soccer team; and a four-year, £1m sponsorship of the FAI's premier domestic league, the Eircom League.

(from business & finance about 18 months back - obviously it's a bit out of date, but i'm sure you get the picture)

Mountjoy Mugger

Originally posted by dahamsta
"With the innocence of the Irish Government on telecommunications issues, we feel they may not realise the absolute importance of stiff penalties for...

Ouch - thoroughly nasty..

dahamsta

Ouch - thoroughly nasty..

Heh, I got much the same reaction from a committee member this morning. I'll put the same question to you as I put to them:

Would you concede that it is true?

I dunno, perhaps "innocence" is a bad word. I could have used "ignorant"? Or "corrupt"? How about "bert is evil"?

adam

dahamsta

How about "bert is evil"?

Heh, I made a joke without even meaning it. Amn't I clever?

adam

Bard

as mentioned on the IrelandOFFLine web site

... oh look ... the IrelandOFFLine web site is up to date... fancy that...

dahamsta

http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=6162226

Fergus

A couple of pints indeed...

Maybe even cut back on the beemer options.

Xian

Originally posted by dahamsta
http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=6162226

Ireland Offline, an industry pressure group that is pushing telecoms and the government for local loop unbundling and broadband Internet...

Ireland Offline ... have been pressuring the ODTR and Eircom for a number of months to move forward with local loop unbundling and the rollout of consumer and small business high-speed broadband Internet access.

This has got to stop, folks.

dahamsta

ABOUT IRELANDOFFLINE

IrelandOffline is a voluntary organisation consisting of home and business Internet users unhappy with currently available Internet connectivity products and services. It's brief is to campaign for the rollout of flat-rate and high-speed Internet access services that are already the norm in other European countries; and to promote innovation and competition in the Irish Internet marketplace.

We can't tell the media what to say Xian, all we can do is try to lead them.

adam

Fergus

It would be nice to try and get some publicity focussed on the flat-rate issue though. Maybe an opportunity will present itself soon enough.

Yoda

Dahamsta said
We can't tell the media what to say Xian, all we can do is try to lead them.

adam

The point is, I think, we need to make more noise about flat-rate so that the media take notice.

dahamsta

We will Yoda, I promise you. I've already started to a degree.

adam

dahamsta

I'll be discussing this press release with Tom from CKR FM at about 11.45 AM tomorrow.

adam

Yoda

What frequency is that?

Fergus

Including all the stuff from the time of the blackout, I'd say he must be pushing one per week at least

dahamsta

The CKR interview was cancelled, I assume because Tom Dowling ran out of time.

adam

scojones

it would be amazing if you could get an interview on 2fm. HAH imagine that!

dahamsta

Elana Kehoe has already been interviewed on Radio One. Gerry Ryan doesn't appear too interested for some reason. Might have a go off him again this week.

adam

timod

Adam,

There's a late night chat show on Red FM in Cork with Charlie Wolf from 10:00 to 1:00.He's fairly popular from what I can ascertain.

He's a bit of an idiot, but it might be worth a call.

Tim