Several firms located outside Dublin have been told they could face delays of up to four years to obtain crucial telecoms circuits from Eircom.

IDA Ireland said last night it was "very concerned" by these lengthy delays and the negative impact they could have on regional development.

The provision of telecoms circuits, which carry voice and data traffic, is considered vital to promote economic growth and enable competition in the telecoms market.

However, The Irish Times has learned that one firm in Mayo, which does not want to be named, was told recently it could not get a two-megabit circuit until January 15th 2005.

The company has lodged a complaint with the telecoms regulator against Eircom and hopes the matter will be resolved shortly.

Eircom also admitted to The Irish Times yesterday that it had broken the terms of a service level agreement signed with Esat in February by failing to supply a delivery date for a company in Sligo.

Most of the longest delays involve companies that choose alternative telecoms providers, as these providers then have to deal directly with Eircom.

"These are not isolated cases," said Mr David Taylor, head of regulatory affairs in Esat. "The failure of Eircom to deliver leased lines on time is the biggest single issue facing Esat."

These cases follow compilation of a draft report by the European Commission last week, which described Eircom as one of the worst operators in Europe on this issue.

The report showed Eircom had delays of up to three months for the delivery of analogue lines for voice traffic and ISDN lines, which carry data.

This ranks Eircom behind 10 EU member states, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway for voice analogue lines. Only operators in the Netherlands and Austria recorded delays longer than Eircom.

Delays in the provision of higher capacity circuits, including two-megabit lines, were similarly high, the report noted.

An IDA Ireland spokesman said the agency was treating the matter very seriously because of its implications for the IDA's efforts to attract industry to the regions.

He said the IDA was currently aware of four separate problems encountered by telecoms firms that had requested leased lines from Eircom to service their own customers.

"We need certainty on telecoms," he said. "All the studies show the infrastructure is there but [companies] can't access it if they don't go with Eircom.

"We have contacted Etain Doyle's office on these issues and are hoping the main players can get around the table and resolve the issues," he said.

An Eircom spokeswoman said last night that the delivery dates sent to individual companies were not accurate and were merely "computer-generated".

She said Eircom would reevaluate these dates on a monthly or quarterly basis and send out new delivery dates. Since February the company had processed 97 per cent of leased lines as normal, she added.

However, last night a spokeswoman for the telecoms regulator admitted Eircom had a long history of poor leased line delivery.

A statement issued regarding the Mayo firm said, "we have contacted Eircom to seek clarification about the timescale regarding the provisioning of a leased line to this particular company, which we consider to be wholly unsatisfactory. We await their final reply."

Late delivery of leased lines, a lack of telecoms infrastructure and high costs for broadband have all been cited in numerous reports as major primary reasons why the regions are still not competitive.

A recent study published by the Cork Chamber of Commerce found there was a 25 per cent differential in broadband costs from Cork compared to Dublin and UK regional cities.

One industry source said there was a major irony in the fact that Global Crossing's high-capacity cross-Atlantic cable landed in Wexford, but that Wexford companies still had little access to broadband.

Another source said that until the Communications Bill passed the Dail, the telecoms regulator would have little power to force Eircom to comply with agreements.

The Bill, which was initially expected to pass into law earlier this year, has still not been published. A spokesman for Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, said there was no specific delay with the legislation.