Telecoms regulator still denies she is accountable to committee

Members of an Oireachtas committee have accused the Director of Telecommunications Regulation, Ms Etain Doyle, of being "unaccountable" and have criticised her reasons for not appearing before them on a previous occasion.

Ms Doyle refused to attend a recent meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport because she said her office was fully independent.

Yesterday she attended a meeting of the committee but restated her view that attendance before it was not a requirement of her office.

"I have taken legal advice and through our reading of the committee's own terms of reference, we have formed the view that the work of my office is not within the ambit of this committee," Ms Doyle said.

But Ms Doyle said she was "happy" to appear before the committee and pointed out that regulations made by her could be annulled by both houses of the Oireachtas.

Fine Gael TD Mr Ivan Yates said that if Ms Doyle was not accountable to the committee, her office was not accountable to the Oireachtas and that seemed to suggest she was not accountable to anyone.

Another committee member, Mr Austin Currie (FG), said Ms Doyle's position was "very strange". In a heated exchange, he said he did not believe Ms Doyle and her legal advisers had never considered the issue of the accountability of her office.

Ms Doyle said she was accountable to the Comptroller and Auditor General and the accounts of her office were audited and laid before the Dail.

This was dismissed as a "red herring" by Mr Yates, who said the Comptroller and Auditor General did not address policy issues.

Ms Doyle said her office had achieved a lot since it was set up last year. Among the achievements, she added, was the issuing of tenders for a third mobile phone licence, forcing price reductions by telecommunications service providers and validating the operation of a price cap on charges by Telecom Eireann.

"The regulator is charged with not only being fair and impartial in making decisions, but with being seen to be so in a difficult and highly competitive market," Ms Doyle said.

The bulk of the questions to Ms Doyle from committee members related to the dispute between deflector operators and cable television companies.

In response to a question from Mr Yates, Ms Doyle agreed that every household had the "right" to multi-channel television.

She said a comprehensive study of the issue was due to be published by her office in about 10 days and this would deal with matters as diverse as digital television and the future of the cable network.

Ms Doyle said her office had received several complaints from members of the public about cable companies.

Some thought might be given, she added, to setting up one central agency to deal with such complaints as they were currently handled by several bodies, including the Ombudsman and the Director of Consumer Affairs.

When asked about the third mobile phone licence, Ms Doyle said she expected the winner to deliver "a somewhat different service" to the existing operators - Eircell and East Digifone.