It has been a busy two years for the Minister for Communications, Mr Dermot Ahern, who has overseen big changes in the telecoms sector since taking on the job, writes Jamie Smyth, Technology Reporter.

Now, with a Cabinet reshuffle due for next week, he says he is staying focused on his portfolio, despite persistent rumours linking him with different ministries, including foreign affairs.

"My preference is to stay in Cabinet but I enjoy this ministry and it is a challenge," says Mr Ahern, who quickly shifts the conversation to accomplishments.

"One of the key areas that I identified when coming into the job was broadband and I am reasonably happy with the changes that have happened," he says. "There were just 3,000 broadband users when I came into office and there are now more than 80,000. Prices were more than €100 and now they are at the EU average."

Faced with an incumbent operator in Eircom that had resisted calls for lower prices and more investment, Mr Ahern set about securing public investment to drive the roll-out of broadband.

"I was acutely aware of the need for Government to be more interventionist... In my view we had to intervene - if you leave it to the market then you have a situation where the peripheral areas and areas not commercially viable for broadband will not have it."

Despite a vigorous campaign conducted by the Communications Workers Union (CWU) in his own backyard and lobbying by Eircom to have funding for regional fibre networks cut, Mr Ahern persuaded Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, to fund the projects.

"During the last six months, Finance has agreed as part of the estimates process to fund broadband in 2005 to 2007 with an average of €35 million per year... networks will now be rolled out to another 90 regional towns."

Mr Ahern acknowledges that difficulties remain in opening the last mile of Eircom's network to competitors but he says there is no going back as public networks and new technologies emerge.

Despite consumer frustrations with a 24 per cent failure rate on Eircom's network, he remains upbeat about the future for broadband take-up in Ireland, which he says is catching up with the EU.

"I would like to see Eircom and the other telecoms firms invest more but they will have to make their own commercial decisions," he says. "What we are experiencing here is no different than other European countries."

Mr Ahern also heralds the establishment of the group broadband scheme - which offers rural communities access to funding worth €25 million - as a success, despite a very low take-up so far.

"We have more of a job to promote the scheme... I am not going to go back to the days where we gave big companies a dollop of money and let them go off and build networks. I will target taxpayers' money to ensure there is not more of a digital divide."

One success in his tenure was the use of policy directions to force the regulator to take aggressive action to ensure Eircom set up flat-rate dial-up internet and wholesale line rental.

"I am happy that I was vindicated in my push to open up flat-rate dial-up and 90,000 people have signed up for it so far. But the next challenge is to move these people to broadband, something which surprisingly isn't happening at the moment," he says.

Critics cite Mr Ahern's interventionist approach in regulation and the creation of an Appeals Panel that can overrule decisions made by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) as evidence that he has undermined the regulator.

He dismisses this criticism signalling that Government must set policy, but he acknowledges that ComReg needs new powers.

"On every occasion when ComReg comes into me I have asked them if they require legislation to ensure that action is taken... Legislation takes time to bring forward, that is the reality. I have now signed off on new legislation that will increase the fines they can levy on firms," he says.

The new powers will be contained in the Telecoms Miscellaneous Bill, which will go before the Oireachtas this autumn. The Bill will reinstate maximum fines of 10 per cent of turnover on indictment of a telecoms firm that breaches regulation. But it may also give ComReg the power to fine telecoms firms without having to go to the courts.

The power to levy tough fines without recourse to the courts has long been a weapon sought by ComReg, which currently can levy only a puny fine of €3,000 on a successful court indictment.

One problem area in his portfolio that Mr Ahern has so far failed to deliver results is the creation of a viable digital TV platform in the Republic. Despite a Government commitment to get a platform up and running since 1998, one attempt has failed and no firm new policy has emerged.

"We could be lucky in that some other countries set these up in the boom and lost millions when the firms collapsed," says Mr Ahern.

"We are now actively looking at rolling DTT [digital terrestrial television\] out nationally but on a gradual basis beginning in the greater Dublin area and over a 30-month period facilitate the development of the market," he says.

Under the current plan, up to 12 channels would be made available to consumers on a trial basis in Dublin at a cost of €3 million

But after six years of waiting for DTT, consumers would be ill-advised to bet the house on it.