Fine Gael Election Promises

vinnyfitz

Continuing the series of manifesto reviews.
FG published theirs this morning.
(Err its not on their website www.finegael.ie as of 16.00 so I can't post a link.)


Anyway I got hold of a copy. Here are their commitments re Telecoms and the Information Society:
Err......

"Individual investors in Eircom will be allowed offset their losses against tax at the standard rate".

Mmmm... sorry that is about it folks.
Nothing about Telecoms at all! not to mention flat rate. It's as if the the internet had not yet been invented - no chat about IT for competitiveness, no mention of egovernment, nor internet in schools, no promises re fibre or broadband even, no nothing.

FG do say they will publish their detailed Programme for Government later in the campaign. Perhaps some feedback from IOFFL members might help them focus on affordable internet access?

Mind you Karlin managed to wheedle a bit more policy out of them (this article is worth a read )

http://scripts.ireland.com/technology/newsshowall.cfm?ID=2584

Saruman

lets make this election voting thing easy.. are there any parties promising something about the internet? if so they have my vote!

Xterminator

Hmmm at least FF gave it some attention i its manifesto, and didnt relagate it to 'we will get around to it later' importance.

Given how close the elections are supposed to be, youd think a block of several thousand votes would be worth trying for.

X

dahamsta

I wouldn't mind, but all they had to do was point at Ivan Yates' eConfident Ireland document of a few years back and they'd be pretty much done. If they really wanted to push the boat out, a sit down session with a few techies would have brought it up to date in about an hour. And it's not as if no-one told them...

From: Adam Beecher
Sent: 09 April 2002 14:29
To: Simon Coveney
Subject: The Government's "bold" new action plan for tech

Simon,

If Fine Gael wants to have a cheap and nasty stab at the opposition, in response to their announcement today of a "bold" new action plan for information society, you might want to point out to the media that neither the Government, Fianna Fáil or Progressive Democrat websites carry mention of it.

http://XXXXX.irelandoffline.org/article.php?story=2002040913503590 [site not yet announced]

http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=7057394

Of course, a better plan would be to redraft Ivan Yates' policy document from 2000 fairly sharpish. This should take a few clever geeks and a couple of TD's about an hour or so. I'd be glad to help, as would numerous colleagues.

Regards,
Adam Beecher

I never received a response to this, or to my email to all of my TD's regarding the Communications Bill. I don't think I was asking for much, do you?

adam

Yoda

Originally posted by Saruman
lets make this election voting thing easy.. are there any parties promising something about the internet? if so they have my vote!

I think the attempts of Fine Gael and Labour to get us a telecoms bill with the appropriate amendments indicate that those two parties would actually do something about it if they had the power to do so. Even if it's not in black and white in the election platform, I would expect action from them. They've acted already. They just need power.

No matter what is in Fianna Fáil's election platform we have see what they did when presented with a perfectly good amendment to the telecoms bill which would have given a mandate for flat-rate access.

Yoda knows the Dark Side when he sees it.

dahamsta

Simon has redeemed himself to a degree...

From: scoveney@oireachtas.irlgov.ie
Sent: 27 April 2002 09:44
To: adam
Subject: Re: URGENT: Communications (Regulation) Bill, 2002




Dear Adam

Thank you for contacting me recently in relation to the Communications
(Regulations) Bill 2002. I can understand your deep concern that we must
ensure that competition is introduced into the market place in the whole area of
communication service provision, particularly in the area of the Internet.

The fact is that people in Ireland are paying far too high a rate to use the
Internet, particularly if they are on for long periods during the day, or if
they want to be permanently on line. I have raised this issue on a number of
occasions with my Party in the Dail, not least in connection with the
Communications(Regulations) Bill. I hope after the election I will be in a
better position to influence legislation in this area to ensure that for the
user and consumer the cost of Internet use is reduced.

Kind regards for now

Simon Coveney TD MCC







"adam" <ad@m.beecher.net> on 04/17/2002 12:46:05 PM

To: Simon Coveney/Oireachtas@HOUSES
cc: minister@doh.irlgov.ie, Deirdre Clune/Oireachtas@HOUSES, Batt
OKeeffe/Oireachtas@HOUSES, johndennehytd@eircom.net

Subject: URGENT: Communications (Regulation) Bill, 2002

I wonder who's been trolling the boards...

adam

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Ironic now that Ivan Yeats has retired.
He must have known he was fighting a losing battle- he is afterall a bookie by trade !!

dahamsta

Ironic now that Ivan Yeats has retired. He must have known he was fighting a losing battle- he is afterall a bookie by trade !!

Ironic indeed, but jebus, it's FG property. Open it, make a few changes, send it to the press. Do they not know they have it or something?

adam

timod

I got a reply from Simon Coveney today too....

Nice to see that the emails are different: not a standard reply.

Dear Tim

Thank you for contacting me to express your concern in relation to the
Communications (Regulations) Bill 2002 and in particular your concern at the flat rate Internet access costings. I agree with you that it is absolutely imperative that we would open up competition in order to drive down the service provision of Internet access to offer always on access to customers. Certainly I think Ireland is in quite an un-competitive position at present in relation to businesses that are heavily reliant on Internet usage.

This is an issue which I have brought up on a number of occasions with my Party in the Dail, - I certainly hope that after the election I will be in a better position to ensure that the cost of Internet access for the consumer is reduced to ensure not least business competitiveness but also a fair price for Internet users outside of business settings. I know that, as you have pointed out in your email, the UK has seen a significant increase in Internet usage with the introduction of a network of Broadband connections and flat rate access.

If you wish to discuss these issues in more detail with me I would be happy to meet up after the election with a view to addressing your concerns. As a regular Internet and web user myself I can understand the frustration at the high cost of usage in this country.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards for now

Simon Coveney TD MCC

stormkeeper

I was talking to Bernard Durkan (TD) yesterday afternoon about what Fine Gael plan to do about the state of internet access over here.

He was saying that they plan to make the internet and IT more widespread througout the country. He was also mentioning Ennis and I think he said it was actually around when they were in government. He also mentioned a few other towns, like Maynooth who entered the competition (I think)

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to ask him about Flat-Rate/DSL, but I'll try my best to ask next time, possibly with better material than what I had in my head


*note: All that I've posted is what I remember. I'm sorry if it doesn't seem to be coherent, but I tried to put up as much of the conversation as I can remember, but at least I'm remebering the main points