Comments on: Labour Broadband Manifesto – Warning contains vision extracts

By: WEB ROUNDUP - DAY 17 - KICKASS CUCKOOS at Irish Election

WEB ROUNDUP - DAY 17 - KICKASS CUCKOOS at Irish Election — Tue, 15 May 2007 23:37:29 +0000

[...] The Labour Party seem to have been listening to Jim Tallon, for they’ve dropped the imperialist’s foreign tongue and gone for an all-irish political broadcast, while Eric Byrne’s note on the Labour party’s decison to hold off on any private hospitals on public ground has already been covered by Cian today. Labour’s Dominic Hannigan’s blog continues in its chatty, breezy style, while Damien Mulley has a piece on Labour’s communication manifesto. [...]

By: Damien

Damien — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:19:53 +0000

Green party are next Stephen.

By: Stephen Crowley

Stephen Crowley — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:14:08 +0000

still laughing at the idea of a laptop for every child.

i like the idea of every school child having adequate access to a computer with a broadband connection. but its a very silly notion imo. the hassles of monitoring each child in a classroom on broadband is ridiculous. you’re just asking for trouble.

also teachers with adequate training for these computers has never been mentioned.

will they encourage junior certs to take a course in ECDL? or will they lie in a corner unused until they realise. who’s going to show the kids how to use these things. by which time they will have halved in value.

I think the idea of it is silly and stupid. and definitely not well thought out. (just think of the expenses especially at the rate computers are changing)

as for the rest of it. At least it makes some sense.

By: DaithÃ

DaithÃ — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:37:02 +0000

Two brief points:

a) there’s more than enough work for a regulation ‘division’ (which would essentially be a judge or two, similar to the commercial court). The idea is that the judge becomes very familiar with administrative law (and in the minds of some of the proponents, gets good at dealing with cases quickly!)

Your average regulatory appeal can take a month or so (Meteor took 70something days!), and there are a lot of new regulators. This has been tossed around for a while, and it normally comes down to theory (whether regulatory judges would be better or worse than a random member of the High Court). I haven’t made up my mind yet.

b) There’s no guarantee that Ireland could unilaterally introduce USO broadband. In fact, given the impact of EU law and the WTO Basic Telecommunications Agreement, it would be quite a fight. Though, Reding said yesterday that she was thinking about changing EU law to make it possible.

Great overview, though. (I didn’t have any role in the document).

By: Larry Mahony » IT Election issues

Larry Mahony » IT Election issues — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:16:24 +0000

[...] If Broadband access or IT Communications are a major issue for you then Damien Mulley has a rundown on all the political parties manifestos and breaks down the jargon to reveal who’s offering the best promises or solutions in the upcoming election. He reckons that Labour offers the manifesto that makes the most sense and is the most forward-thinking. So if Broadband access or quality or rates are affecting you then a vote for Labour appears to be the most logical option. [...]