asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the manner in which his Department ensure that television cable companies are operating strictly in accordance with the licences issued by him and, in particular, if he will ensure that the standard of service required under the licence is provided in the Fairview and Marino areas of Dublin.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cable Television Standards.
12.
It is assumed that the Deputy's question relates to compliance by cable television licensees with the conditions relating to technical standards determined under the Wireless Telegraphy (Wired Broadcast Relay Licence) Regulations, 1974. Licensees of cable systems which were in operation before licensing was introduced on 1st April, 1974, were given a period of 12 months to bring their systems into conformity with the technical conditions. My Department have no reason to believe that cable companies are not complying now with the technical conditions attached to their licences.
My Department have powers under the regulations to require licensees to make available on request any information relating to their systems or any test equipment or apparatus necessary to facilitate testing of their systems by an authorised officer of my Department. The manner in which these powers are exercised in regard to any particular system would depend on the circumstances of the case.
The reception from piped television system depends primarily on the strength and consistency of the signals available at the masthead and, secondly, on the efficient relay of these signals to subscribers. The technical conditions relate only to this latter function. The quality of the BBC and ITA signals available off-air at the masthead is, of course, completely outside my Department's control. The vast majority of complaints about cable television received by my Department relate to reception problems which are found on investigation by the cable company concerned to be caused either by poor off-air signals, faults in the subscribers' own apparatus, or minor faults or breakdowns in the system.
A number of complaints have been received in recent weeks about service on the cable television system in the Fairview/Marino area for which RTE hold the cable television licence. RTE have advised that the recent faults in the system serving this area were due primarily to deliberate damage to the system carried out at some point on the system on most evenings from 1st to 20th October last. These faults have been repaired and it is understood that there has been a considerable improvement in service in recent weeks. There were also complaints of poor reception during the summer months. I understand that at times of such fine weather reception was adversely affected by the quality of signals available off-air.
My Department recently carried out an inspection of the system serving the Marino/Fairview area and this has confirmed that the system is technically efficient.
(Dublin Central): Could the Minister give an indication of the breakdown in the Marino/Fairview area? Is there any likelihood this could happen again? Can the Minister say why it happened?
Investigation has gone on into why it happened. There was sabotage and investigation is going on into that. There is no way of guaranteeing that there could be no recurrence of that, but of course, every precaution is being taken.