Some time ago Telecom Éireann submitted proposals to me for a comprehensive rebalancing of leased lines charges. These charges had not been adjusted in many years and a serious shortfall had developed, especially in the provision of the type of circuits referred to by the Deputy, between the costs of providing the service and the revenue earned from it. This culminated in the package of increases announced by Telecom Éireann in late 1995.
There should be a reasonable relationship between the tariffs for leased lines and the tariffs charged for other network services including the ordinary telephone services. This had not been maintained however, with the result that a distorted pricing structure grew up which encouraged customers to remain with leased lines even though this was an inefficient use of the network.
This was particularly so in the case of short distance analogue circuits, including alarm circuits, which were generally charged at a flat rate of £80 a year, although the user was tying up infrastructure that would be charged at £240 to any ordinary user. That is why I insisted the increases indicated by the allocation of costs in such cases should be capped at a tariff marginally above the cost of the equivalent two telephone lines initially.