The Minister for Public Enterprise Ms O'Rourke has introduced legislation aimed at preventing liberalisation of the telecommunications market from becoming bogged down because of legal challenges to decisions taken by the telecoms regulator.
Ms O'Rourke signed two statutory instruments on Friday which will allow the decision of the regulator, Ms Etain Doyle, to stand while a matter is subject to review.
From now on, no company or operator can get automatic suspension of a decision in relation to interconnect or the awarding of licences by simply taking court action.
Ms Doyle said there was provision, if the courts regarded it as appropriate, to hold up decisions, but companies would have to apply and argue their case.
"I'm delighted to have this. I have felt we have been unable to make the kind of progress at the speed we wanted to make because of this provision. Now we will be able to move full speed ahead on a number of things," she said on The Sunday Business Show on Today FM yesterday.
The most obvious example of a delay in the introduction of competition in the sector relates to the awarding of a third GSM mobile phone licence. The regulator's decision to award the licence to Meteor has been held up for more than 18 months after rival operator, Orange, appealed the decision to the High Court.
The Government move follows recent criticism from technology industry experts that a readiness to take court action over the regulator's decisions was jeopardising the Republic's hopes of becoming an e-business leader.
The latest to call for faster action in liberalising the telecoms market is employers' lobby group IBEC. In a review of the sector, its Telecommunications and Internet Federation highlighted a number of key deficiencies, including the delay in awarding the third mobile phone licence.
"The delays that have been caused through appealing decisions of the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation to the courts are unacceptable if Ireland is to seriously develop as an e-commerce international centre," IBEC director Mr Tommy McCabe said.
IBEC also criticised bottlenecks in the delivery of highbandwidth services to small and medium-sized businesses and to residential customers and said there was an urgent need to accelerate arrangements to issue the new third generation mobile phone licences or universal mobile telecommunication system.
The federation noted that Spain and Finland had already awarded such licences while Britain is currently going through an auction process to award them.
Meanwhile, Ms Doyle called on the Government to increase the penalties that could be imposed on telecom companies found to be in breach of their licences. At present, the maximum fine that can be imposed is £1,500, punishment that in many cases does not fit the crime, Ms Doyle said.
"The damage that may have been done to the market, to consumers who are to benefit from this open market, is probably going to be multiples of any figure of that size," she noted.
A Government spokesman said the issue of penalties was being actively considered as part of a review of the regulatory process. Among the penalties being considered is fining companies a percentage of turnover.
