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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 Feb 1997

Vol. 475 No. 2

Adjournment Debate. - Consultants' Report on MMDS System.

I wish to share a minute of my time with Deputy Hughes.

That is in order.

I wish to ask the Minister three questions. Will he publish the consultants' report which he received yesterday from the EBU consultants into the ongoing battle between the MMDS and local communities? Will he make available to the Dáil the legal advice from the Attorney General so that we are aware of the advice available to the Government on the matter. Given that the report is available, when will the Minister decide whether to grant the South Coast Community Television application? No doubt I will receive a lengthy reply on the history of this matter, but I hope the Minister will respond to those questions.

Deputy Burke will give the history.

The Minister will be aware that meetings have taken place throughout the country where communities are at war with the companies. Two promises were made by the Government in this regard. The Programme for Government refers to allowing competition between community television deflection systems and existing MMDS franchise holders. As if that promise were not enough, the Taoiseach told a packed hall in Carrigaline in November 1995 during a by-election campaign that he would soon grant a temporary licence to South Coast Community Television. That commitment was agreed by all three parties in Government. The Minister cannot blame this side of the House for reminding him of those two pledges which were made openly and, no doubt, honestly. Does the Government intend to meet those commitments and, if not, will the Minister publish the reason for not doing so and why it was necessary to make them?

The appointment of a regulator will not solve the problem. It is important that the regulator is not used as a means of passing the buck. The Government made specific commitments to communities throughout the country and, apart from the inevitable history lesson I will get from the Minister——

I have given up all hope of giving history lessons.

——I would like to know if he intends to meet the commitments given to communities, or will he renege on those commitments?

In a High Court case in 1995 Mr. Justice Keane said that the Department was wrong not to consider a licence application and directed it to do so. I am not unaware of the complex legal and technical difficulties in this case. What is the Attorney General's advice on the matter? When will we see the consultants' report? When will a decision be made on the matter and, most importantly, will the commitments made by the Government be met?

I thank my colleague for sharing his time with me. This matter is particularly sensitive in my constituency. My constituency colleague in the Fine Gael Party, Deputy Ring, had the opportunity once again this morning to articulate his views on the national airwaves on a matter that lies at the root of equality and equal treatment. One is mindful of the singular role played by that Deputy in ensuring the Government provides a subvention for group water schemes in Mayo. He said on the national airwaves this morning that the existing service, namely, the deflector service, provided to 110,000 people in the county should be licensed. I ask the Minister to give the information sought by my colleague. The present service, which amounts to bottom-up development, has been maintained by voluntary community organisations at a cost of 1,000 per cent less than that which would be charged by an MMDS operator. While there may be legal difficulties, there are also technical difficulties in that an MMDS operation may not be able to give a service to more than 30 per cent of the population in my constituency. Will the Minister publish the report and tell me why ten or 15 years later people do not have the terms, conditions and performance stipulations outlined in those licences to which they are entitled?

I am glad to have the opportunity to make a statement on this matter. From what I have been hearing, it seems people may be rushing to conclusions on what can only be based on rumour.

There is no consultants' report into the MMDS deflector issue. What I received last Saturday was a report from the consultants appointed by my predecessor to carry out an analysis of an application by South Coast Community TV for a licence to operate its re-transmission system. It is important to be precise here. Only one such application is under consideration, that is, the one from South Coast Community TV. The EBU consultants' report is concerned with that application and with no other.

The House will be aware that following the High Court judgment in 1995 on the action brought by South Coast Community TV, I am obliged to reconsider an application from that organisation for a licence to operate. The court did not dictate what form that consideration should take or the outcome of any such reconsideration. However, to provide a degree of objectivity, far beyond what was necessary for the process, my predecessor decided to ask outside technical experts to analyse the application. This was partly because the main difficulty about the use of deflector systems from the beginning has always been the technical one, that is, the inevitable congestion that would be caused in the broadcasting frequency band. The consultants' report is about a technical analysis for my consideration in the course of the decision-making process as regards the South Coast Community TV application.

I am now obliged to give due consideration to this application in the light of all the relevant issues, including those that are the subject of the report. The report does not contain any imperatives because the consultants were not asked to make any decisions or recommendations on the main issues. All the decisions to be taken in these matters fall within my statutory remit. There is no analysis of the MMDS system or of any other application as such.

I, therefore, hope people will not be led by speculation into a belief that this report provides clear-cut solutions to all our problems. This evening one commentator — an interested party — spoke of the decision of the EBU inspectors in the Carrigaline case and said they would recommend that Carrigaline be allowed a licence. That is not the content of the report or what the consultants were asked to do. The report is a complex document dealing with complex issues and it will take time to digest. I have not leaked its contents selectively or otherwise. Ministers do not generally publish the advice they receive. I will give a copy of the report to South Coast Community TV because it is its application that is the subject of the report. I will give some thought, when I have had a chance to study the report, to wider publication of its contents to interested parties for consultation purposes before I make a final decision. The last thing we need in rationally settling the deflector issue is superficial and partisan analysis of a highly technical report dealing with just one application.

It is important to stress again that this report is an examination of technical matters which bear on the South Coast Community TV application. We are talking primarily about those matters that concern radio frequency interference and radio resource allocation. These technical aspects are not the only ones to be considered. Just as there are competing interests at stake in this area, there are also competing economic, administrative and legal aspects to be taken into account, including our obligations under international treaties governing the assignment of broadcasting frequencies and, most of all, the existing legislation which was introduced by Deputy Raphael Burke. It is my job to take all of these into account and to make a balanced judgment in the interests of society. It may be that I will have to take advice on some non-technical issues also.

In the time available to me to read the report since receiving it, I have come to the view that a tremendous amount of work has had to be invested in the technical analysis of this one application. I am not surprised at this because radio frequency interference analysis is complex and time consuming work. There are many variables involved in the radio planning process. It is clear that such analysis is necessary and it will become increasingly difficult if we fit unplanned services into the broadcasting bands beside the four national services which are being progressively rolled out.

My only comment on the other deflector systems around the country is that in coming to a decision about the South Coast Community TV application, I will have regard to the implications of and for deflector systems generally. Beyond that, however, I have no intention of becoming embroiled in controversy or legal proceedings that arise from the operation of deflector systems and, indeed, it would not be conducive to a speedy decision in the South Coast Community TV case to do so.

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