Dermot, you have raised our hopes and our spirits!

For anybody who has not heard or read Ahern’s speech, a short recap and some quotes:
At the TIF Annual Telecommunications Conference in Dublin, 25/10/2002, the Minister for Communications, Dermot Ahern, announced that he was directing the Commission for Communications Regulation to introduce flat rate Internet access as an absolute priority. The Minister said that flat rate Internet access was vital in driving the Information Society and was seen as a pivotal part of our development as an economy and as a society.
"It is not alone my view that we need flat rate access. It is the opinion of FORFÁS, it is the opinion of the National Competitiveness Council, the Advisory Committee on Infocoms and just about anyone who has examined our Information Society requirements - that Ireland needs flat-rate Internet access. Sooner rather than later."
"We have to lead in this area. It is not enough to trail behind Europe, the US and the Far East in terms of [telecommunications] policy and infrastructure. We need a stable, modern and competitive communications market. We need to be the best, the most competitive in the world."

To acknowledge the bleak truth is a very good start, to aim high is a good strategy. The most competitive in the world – that chance is of course gone for good!
Even just to catch up with the rest will need a concerted effort by the minister and the regulator on an informed basis.

We have sent a response to the ODTR’s consultation paper "Future Delivery of Broadband in Ireland" to Regulator Etain Doyle, Communications Minister D. Ahern and eMinister Mary Hanafin.
While the response is best read in conjunction with the 72 pages ODTR document, we tried to make it understandable on its own and have even put in a few illustrations.

Download our response as a pdf file. (1.4 MB)

View our response directly in your Browser as HTML.

Download the ODTR consultation paper as pdf file.

From our response to the ODTR paper:
Tomi Ungerer created this illustration for a folk song about the fatal consequences of lady farmer Mary’s ignorance. Mary thought she could simply bring home her newly acquired goat by tying her to the train – with tragic results. Let us not allow that to become the story of the Internet in Ireland!