The State telecommunications watchdog has intervened with Eircom over the soaring number of faults in the company's phone network.
With almost 100,000 phone customers suffering line faults over the past two months, ComReg told The Irish Timesyesterday it was unacceptable that they would be left without service for long periods.
However, Eircom blamed the problem on bad weather and denied a claim by the Irish Farmers' Association that a failure to invest in a "creaking" fixed-line network was also a factor.
It admitted that 5,000 customers, mainly in the west and southwest, remain without a phone service, and many of these homes have remained disconnected for weeks. The diversion of resources to repairing broken phone lines was also leading to longer waits for new connections.
The IFA had called on the Government and telecoms regulator ComReg to intervene. "Consumers pay way above average in monthly line rental to Eircom and the least they can expect when there is a fault on their line is for it to be fixed within an acceptable time," a spokesman said.
"Not alone are thousands of customers being left with an inadequate phone-repair service for days, but they are finding it almost impossible to get through to Eircom to report a fault or get an update." Eircom should be required to fix faults within three days, the IFA said. If it did not, customers should be paid compensation.
An Eircom spokesman said the company has spent more than €3.5 million on overtime to repair the damage caused by three big storms in December and January. Repair crews were working seven days a week to restore connections, but new faults were emerging.
"We do anticipate winter storms, but we didn't anticipate the severity of these storms and their effect on the network."
A customer charter could not be applied in this area because the situation was out of the company's control. Where faults were the fault of Eircom, the company did have arrangements to refund line rental to customers.
The IFA said it was time for the Government and ComReg to take action to ensure that rural homes and businesses are not further disadvantaged by the collapse of the phone service for want of investment and repair.