The Telecom Éireann Users' Council was a statutory body established under sections 48 and 49 of the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act, 1983. As I said before in this House, as recently as 2 November 1993, this body was abolished some years ago and its functions were effectively taken over by the Ombudsman and sections 48 and 49 of the 1983 Act were repealed by section 3 and the Second Schedule of the Restrictive Practices (Amendment) Act, 1987.
In September 1993 I established a less formal, though nonetheless independent, body which is called the Telephone Users' Advisory Group. The main function of this group is to carry out independent monitoring of the operation and impact on consumers of the rebalancing package introduced by Telecom Éireann on 1 September 1993. In establishing this group, I specifically allowed it to determine its own procedures and the frequency of publication of reports is a matter for the group itself.
I have received two reports to date from the group, one in January 1994 and one yesterday, both of which were made public when they were being sent to me and both of which are, I understand, available in the Oireachtas library.