asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if his attention has been drawn to a report in the Financial Times that the Irish phone system is the worst in Europe; and if he will comment on the report.
Written Answers. - Telephone Service.
146.
I have seen the report in the Financial Times to which the Deputy refers. it is headed, “Irish Telecommunications. A race to catch up”, and it does not include the statement referred to by the Deputy. In the course of the article the correspondent compared the telephone service here unfavourably with that of other EEC countries, which are highly developed telephonically, but he referred also to the high quality of the international telephone service and of the telex service in this country. It is the position that the telecommunications service here is not as highly developed in certain respects as that in other EEC countries and the current telephone development programme for which I introduced legislation last year is directed towards closing that gap.
161.
asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the average waiting time, for the entire country, between the dates of application and installation of (a) domestic telephones; and (b) telephones in business firms; and if he will give a break-down of waiting times in each case by county.
Statistics are not maintained in a form that would allow of the information sought by the Deputy being obtained without a disproportionate expenditure of staff time. However, the average waiting time at present of all applications on the waiting list is 13 months. A random sampling of installations made in 1977 showed that 39 per cent of the installations in the sample were made within three months of the date of application, 62 per cent within six months, and 78 per cent within 12 months; the remaining 22 per cent were in respect of applications outstanding for varying periods in excess of 12 months.