Vol. 449 No. 4
46 Mr. D. McDowell asked the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications the view taken by the Irish Government at the recent meeting of the EU Telecommunications Council in relation to the liberalisation of the telecommunications industry. [3564/95]
The Telecommunications Council was held in November 1994 and adopted a resolution on infrastructure liberalisation.
The original proposal from the Commission was to liberalise in a first stage communications infrastructure which already exists for use in respect of services which are already liberalised with effect from an early date with no derogations and in a second stage to liberalise all infrastructure for all purposes from January 1998 with a derogation of up to five years for certain member states, including Ireland. The primary focus of Ireland's efforts up to and at the Council was to oppose the first stage and this objective was achieved.
The final result was a one stage liberalisation timetable for 1998 which is the same as that for liberalisation of voice telephony. Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal may have a derogation of up to five years linked to the derogations which are possible from voice telephony liberalisation. The Irish delegation made it clear that any decision to avail of the derogations would be for the same period in both cases.
