Department of miscommunication

NET RESULTS: Within a short time after his appointment as Minister of the new Department of Communications and Natural Resources, Mr Dermot Ahern told an interviewer that a top priority would be to sort out problems at RTÉ.

Broadcasting is now part of the overall communications portfolio. This brings the Republic in line with the general European, and indeed world, approach to broadcasting - it should be housed among communications and technology responsibilities, not arts.

Of course, RTÉ has definitely had its share of troubles in recent years and few would argue that these need to be tackled with intent. Some of its problems are linked directly to a failure to resolve technical issues, such as a single platform standard for digital television, which has more or less scuppered once-ambitious digital television plans.

But RTÉ as the burning issue of this department? Please.

Its woes fade away, as do so many of the pressing problems in other portions of this new Department, when compared to the continuing problem of constructing an adequate broadband network. (Indeed, the provision of a good broadband network would open doors for RTÉ to provide new services.) Broadband was the biggest issue for the communications section when it was part of the Department of Public Enterprise (DPE).

It remains one of the greatest challenges for Government. Broadband as a topic may not exactly dominate dinner table chit chat - much less cabinet table chit chat - but much of the nation's future will rely on the creative resolution of this enormous problem.

Therefore, many people who watched the Taoiseach's redistribution of departmental responsibilities will have some qualms that RTÉ made it to the top of the official "to do" list of the Communications Department, while there's been little, if any, mention of the real issues at the heart of the communications brief.

Meanwhile, with perfect post-election timing, the quarterly report from the Office of the Director of Communications Regulation revealed that the lack of adequate and reasonably priced broadband connections was the most pressing issue for businesses it surveyed.

Some 35 per cent of businesses - from the small to multinational corporations - said difficulties in getting broadband connections had influenced investment decisions regarding the location of points of operation. Guess where companies don't go because they can't get enough bandwidth? The regions, of course - an issue of great importance to the Government's and the IDA's national development strategies. And of course, a huge concern of people in the regions, who want their areas to remain viable, and for those in Dublin, who fear no end to traffic congestion, high cost of housing and urban sprawl.

The majority of companies, 61 per cent, also said they foresaw their need for bandwidth increasing in the next year, with a quarter saying they would need "a lot more". Half of businesses plan to upgrade their connectivity.

The State's big plans for e-government and the growth of an "information society" are also wholly dependent on addressing broadband problems and other Communications Department issues.

Perhaps the Taoiseach should have refrained from shuffling around some of the most crucial sections of Government into new ministries. Cutting and pasting these divisions just as they are trying to cope with complex challenges - much less assigning them to completely new people - is sure to hamper and delay whatever work has been started.

Because Ms Mary O'Rourke lost her Dáil seat, Communications was always going to have a new minister. And for some time the Government had been considering moving it to some other department, given that transport issues were dominating departmental time within the DPE.

But many observers question whether it should have been hammered together rather awkwardly with Natural Resources. This week that odd pairing was emphasised as the Minister headed to Brussels to argue about fishing territories and quotas in his role as Minister for the Marine. Transport and infrastructure issues were surely better bedfellows for Communications than this odd mix.

Some of this incongruity could be overcome by the e-minister - that is, if we actually have one, and if she has the power to implement and solder together policy across departments. The technology industry is confused at the fuzzy way in which the Taoiseach announced Ms Mary Hanafin's role as a Minister of State for, um, something kind of technological.

The uncertainty about her role is so deep - from within the very organisations that argued most strongly for the appointment of the e-minister - that lobby group ICT Ireland this weekend called for the appointment of, yes, an e-minister. The Government must urgently define her role and convince us that she will have time to fulfil both her roles as Minister of State and as Chief Whip.

But looking simply at the broadband portion of policy alone, it seems hard to imagine how she will do this. Therefore, Government should create a role similar to that of Britain's e-envoy, who answers to the e-minister and does much of the hands-on work.

The need for a coordinating e-ministerial role was emphasised at the end of May when only five MEPs - and none from Fianna Fáil - showed up for a critical vote in the European Parliament. Only one, Green Party MEP Ms Nuala Ahern, voted against a horrendous amendment to the Data Protection Directive that will allow massive levels of surveillance and the seven-year retention of all e-mails, faxes, internet usage and phone call data.

This proposal reverses our national laws that protect privacy for individuals and businesses. If brought into law here, the new directive will significantly erode our pro-e-commerce climate and discourage citizens from trusting the e-Government initiatives.

Who, for example, would trust that their sensitive medical data, sent by one doctor to another via e-mail, would remain private? How ironic that this vote came just as Irish people went to the polls, re-electing a Government that has been trying to convince them that a faceless EU parliament is not intent on removing national sovereignty on critical policy areas.

How ironic that the Government so completely failed to follow issues in Europe that have a direct bearing on citizen rights and the pro-business environment it had worked hard to cultivate.

Because it was not au fait with the issues it made no attempt to inform its own party MEPs or anyone else about this issue. One only hopes the directive will not be brought directly into law here.

If we had had an e-minister with an understanding of issues and the will to drive policy, they could have helped ensure a "no" vote on such a vital issue - at least from the Fianna Fáil MEPS. And maybe an e-minister could have got them to go to Brussels and do the job the people elected them to do.