Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 5 Mar 1996

Vol. 462 No. 5

Written Answers. - Costs of Alarm Links.

Seamus Brennan

Ceist:

47 Mr. S. Brennan asked the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications if his attention has been drawn to the fact that following the Government decision in 1995 to increase leased line fees the costs of alarm links between companies and Garda stations will rise by over 1,000 per cent. [4947/96]

Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications (Mr. Lowry)

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.

At the same time, I instructed Telecom Éireann to take steps to assist customers in identifying the least cost reconfiguration of whatever service they require. In many cases this would entail customers moving to alternative services or converting to modern terminal equipment operated on the ordinary telephone network. In the case mentioned by the Deputy, for example, it would be techinically feasible to add an auto-dialling device at the customer premises which would be capable of transmitting the same communication over the ordinary telephone network on an existing telephone line.

As the charge for each individual leased circuit is dependent upon a number of variable elements unique to that circuit, It is not possible to generalise about the impact of the increase on any particular customer or type of customer. The cap on increases for analogue circuits was put in place to discourage increases of the magnitude suggested in the Deputy's question. It may be that there could be exceptional cases where there might be a greater increase. If the Deputy is aware of such a case I suggest that he transmit relevant details to me and I will have the case examined.