Vol. 448 No. 2
129 Mr. S. Brennan asked the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications the average billing increases from Telecom Éireann to the householder and small business over the past three years; and the comparisons between charges to these categories and similar categories in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom and the EU average. [1774/95]
The size of bills issued to any customer or group of customers is a day-to-day matter for Telecom Éireann and under section 33 (3) of the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act, 1983, I have no function in day-to-day matters. I would, however, refer the Deputy to the reports made to me by the Telephone Users' Advisory Group, copies of which have been laid before the House. These reports show the effects of the changes in telephone charges in Ireland. There have been major changes in tariff rates in September 1993, and April 1994. I urge caution in any attempt to relate this information to customers' bills over a three year period, however, as bills would be affected by changes in the number of calls, calling patterns and the duration of calls.
Similarly I have no responsibility for charges applying in other countries. The question of making comparisons between charges for telecommunications services in various countries is a difficult issue to address satisfactorily as there are many factors which affect the accuracy of any reply which might be possible. The variation in the size of local call areas, the issue of whether charges for residential customers and business customers are the same, variations between rental and connection charges for urban and rural customers, the availability of discounts, low usage schemes, variations in the rate of VAT, variations between the charges applied by competing companies in the same member states, etc. all make the assessment of charges or any basket of charges extremely difficult to interpret meaningfully.
