Being away all week I missed this, but Via Adrian Weckler is news that Eamonn Ryan is now being run by his civil servants who say everything is fine in broadband Ireland. It is a shame that a party I gave my vote to is now signing off on lies that they once called shenanigans on. Between this and kissing the ass of corrupt ComReg in the same week it really angers me. At least with Fianna Fail, you knew they’d carry on doing what they did which was nothing. That’s not hypocrisy. A Green Minister now copying and pasting from previous statements by Noel Dempsey after complaining so much
I’ve been told that Minister Ryan used to read my blog along with other Green TDs. Here’s the story to any of you folks who still do. Irelandoffline might be gone but I will happily monitor all press releases and statements and point out to my press list the utter hypocrisy of your new statements.
Hi Damien !
Your concerns will be dismissed by the Green Party parliamentarians as ‘not our problem’ , as they have already done regarding the Hill of Tara issue –
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhkfojkfeyoj/rss2/
Apparently , in building political careers one has to be ‘flexible’ to the point of being a hypocrite .
Shame on the Green Party . They will ‘fit’ comfortably in their new ‘home’ .
Sharon.
Green Party site is down for some reason… that article is also on Eamon Ryan’s own site though.
Very interesting to read both releases and see just how politic the recent one is. Covers his arse well despite what is essentially a complete reversal.
Perhaps we should repost some of former deputy Ryan’s comments at the Dail Joint Sub-Committee on Communications back up.
This man knows his mind and he also knows the pathetic state of the BB networks in Ireland. The higher they are, the harder they can potentially fall.
Won’t be long now till Mme Reding focusses on some other issues in Brussels, and the likelihood is that once roaming is off the agenda Internet Regulation aka: Net Neutrality and BB uptake in Europe will be next.
Internet Regulation – No thanks!
PS: I am really hoping Ryan is not led down the garden path. The new entrant industry like him, seeing his knowledge and past performances as positive. He needs to make sure he’s not putting the wrong mesages out. The sultans of spin might like that.
We don’t need to see eircom back in the driving seat. They’ve remained persona non grata now for quite some time. Why change this?
I’m genuinely stunned at some of the dimness I just read here. Also some of you have made a brilliant case for the compulsory teaching of Civics in Irish schools because apparently nobody’s read the first-year politics books that I did when I moved over.
ALL government department business is conducted in the name of the Minister, and has been since the foundation of the State. Currently the only thing we can assume is that the same horseshit statements are being issued as before the election, by the same people, on the same schedule, acting under prior instruction.
Someone from the political side of the department has to *actively stop* a ministry activity once it’s been initiated. Immediately assuming that Eamon Ryan is signing off on every press release is, frankly. stupid.
Yes, he needs to step in and stop it. Yes, a ball’s been dropped. But ferfucksakes, calm the fuck down.
So how many day’s grace is a Green Minister allowed in order to grow a spine? Given that the Greens themselves have demanded a higher standard for years and have bleated on and on about how they are leading by example, why is it now that the Minister is allowed the grace he would not let the previous Government to enjoy?
For me the only grace he should have is a certain time to retract what his Department have released on his behalf in the past few days or else renounce all previous statements he made in the Oireachtas where he condemned the bullshit he and his Department are now peddling.
I honestly think that if nobody says anything and lets him “find his sea legs” then this artifical grace period will be extended indefinitely.
Well, we’ve turned up one press release from nine days ago, so apparently he’s a world-class turncoat if he doesn’t start micro-managing the civil servants in the press office in under one week.
I don’t think *you* think that’s true.
{Also, consider the part where I agreed this is a fuckup that wants fixing repeated here. And yes, keep ’em on their toes by all means. But a policy-U-turn this *completely is not*. Thus far.}
You know what John, your probably right. You are entitled to your opinion, I commented as while I certainly don’t think there has been a shift, any reduction in the tension required to keep the pressure on the incumbent is not great. The civil servants should know better. I fully support Ryan. Just have a problem with the last two releases and the ComReg speech. The Civil Servant who used to write for Dempsey retired some time back and pity about it.
John, first of all, is that really an excuse? As Damien says, how long a grace period do we allow then? And under what other circumstances does a minister get to blame his office rather than take responsibility? And furthermore, it’s not true that “the only thing we can assume is that the same horseshit statements are being issued as before the election, by the same people, on the same schedule, acting under prior instruction” because the release is very carefully crafted to take into consideration Ryan’s previous stance.
I spoke to one of his researchers recently and it sounded like they were still settling into the department so I presume things are still kind of on autopilot until he gets to grips with the broad spectrum of the job.
I’m hoping to meet and/or interview him before the end of the month, so I’ll keep the broadband situation in mind.
To be honest, I think mobile broadband penetration might slowly but surely address the issue.
Mobile penetration is hardly the panacea we require when quite basic line services are missing from fairly significant part of the country.
Lets not muddy the waters by trying to do what Dermot Ahern did and include mobile BB penetration figures in the mix. It serves no purpose at all.
Quite right. Mobile isn’t enough. And I certainly won’t be defending Eamon Ryan if he fails to get deep change moving.
We need, for every home and business, a choice of at least two different broadband technologies, owned by different companies, and without monthly bandwidth capping.
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Bitch, bitch and still nobody (except for John) has come up with a suggestion on how to solve the problem..
E.
The solution is the recommendations from the Oireachtas report on broadband. Something that has been mentioned by me again and again but just like your comment on Sky Handling Partners, you are too fucking busy trying to jump the fucking gun to get a dig at me then actually rationally thinking anything through. Part of the same solution is to stop bullshitting the people of Ireland and stop making excuses and get on with the hard work.
Damien, stop having a hissy fit.
My comment was not aimed solely at you but also at the other people commenting. You are not the only person with an interest in this subject.
But yes it was ALSO a dig at you as you have avoided any discussion with me on the subject and have always responded with criticism rather than answers.
I am far to busy to peruse every detail of your blog but nay-saying prevails over constructive criticism as far as I can see….
E.
But not apparently busy enough to leave negative comments on this blog.
Would me only leaving positive comments make you feel better?
You’re in the public eye and your blog gets linked from a number of other sources. By making public postings you invite public comments. Not all of these will be to your linking, that’s life…
E.
linking = liking
Positive or negative, I don’t care, but you’re the person that said he was too busy to read my blog posts properly, yet takes time out of his hectic schedule to leave comments on the posts he has no time to read properly and to complain then that he gets a hostile reaction.
I have a suggestion.
Eircom could Unbundle all the local loops.
They could ask BT how they manage to get a 99.9% DSL coverage in the UK and a 100% coverage in the north? It’s not that difficult.
Eircom however has been asset stripped twice by private equity vultures and now don’t have a pot to piss in. They can’t give the customers what they want because they have no money to invest. And the government envisages doing the same thing with the ESB. Privitisation fuck-ups in the name of competition.
Yeah that’s true. Mary O’Rourke has a whole lot to answer for really and she gets re-elected.
Like many other countries the state should have retained some sort of control if not in poison pill terms.
Ah well, what can we do?
I for one don’t think the suggestion of proceeding with unbundling is viable owing to the really poor state of the copper networks. BTs plans while developing are a little bit behind the curve. The only advantage of subloop unbundling for example is to an incumbent.
eircom’s plans for the future are only really there to reduce regulation, completely flumox ComReg and compete with UPC/Liberty media. No other reason.
Possible that we’ll see asset sales given time. Also might cross reference the program for government on same.
We are now nationally at a point where we have to rely very heavily on operators who are in markets such as the UK, US and NL to ensure we are not brough along up the stream enjoying the journey that is supposed to be deregulation.
We may need to look to the US in fact.
I was going to correct Damien on the “Regulatory Capture” caption of the post, but seeing as its hard to find positive delineations at the moment between indepedent regulator and ministry perhaps it works. One thing for sure is that it does and will not work for Ireland Inc.
This is my view.
Eircom?
Eircom?
Would that be the same Eircom that the government gave away almost free to Tony O Reilly? The same Eircom that used to be Telecom Eireann, paid for by the taxpayer, but which is now a private company owned by a crowd of Australian asset-strippers?
Ah right. the same.
So why the fuck would we expect them to have any morals whatsoever?
Let’s move on and build a new telecomms infrastructure the very same as the one we used to call Eircom. (Which our government handed over to a wanker with a dodgy honorary degree and a very loud voice. Free.)
Have we any input from somebody who was actually at the ComReg party?? From my experience the handout is written long beforehand, did he actually say that at the event?? If he did then all the comment about sellout is valid. He should/could have used the actual presentation to make some remarks about his intentions.
Of course the Dail Committee stuff is the answer, can we arrange a Dail question to Ryan on when he will implement that. (that is when they come back from their hols….)
Bye, Barry
[…] bad enough that a once respectable politican joined a Government with the devil and took the Fianna Fail boilerplate for broadband excuses and perverted them to new lows and along the way had an Irish Times journalist join in further damaging Ireland by […]