Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 21 Mar 2018

Vol. 966 No. 8

Telecommunications Services (Ducting and Cables) Bill 2018 [Seanad]: Second Stage

Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (Deputy Seán Kyne)

I move:

"That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The Galway-Mayo ducting and cables telecommunications network is a vital piece of State infrastructure located in an area of strategic importance for transatlantic traffic and with the potential to provide significantly improved broadband services in an area of the country underserved by broadband. It is built and is already in use to a limited extent to provide vital transatlantic connectivity for a multinational company. It is poised to meet its full potential and the Bill before the House is the key to the fulfilment of that ambition.

The Bill before the House today has three principal objectives. The first is to provide for, and ensure, that the ownership of the ducting and cables and ancillary equipment vest in the Minister. The second is to give rights of access to private lands through which the ducting and cables pass. Both of those objectives ensure that the persons managing the network, the managed service entity, MSE, will be able to fully maintain and operate the network. The third is to minimise impacts to landowners along the route of the ducting and cables and to provide compensation and safeguards to those landowners arising from the use of their land. I propose to address each of those objectives in turn.

On the first objective, the ducting and cables are currently being used by way of an interim arrangement with Gas Networks Ireland, GNI, acting as the network manager. As part of that interim arrangement it was necessary to provide GNI with certain rights to use the network, including temporary ownership of the cable and ancillary equipment. Section 2 provides that the ownership of the ducting and cables and ancillary equipment will vest in the Minister on the coming into operation of that section. This will eliminate the potential for any legal doubt in that regard and any possible delay in the bringing into full operation of the network.

The second objective is to provide rights of access to all lands through which the Galway-Mayo ducting passes. In 2005 during the planning of the Galway-Mayo gas pipeline by Bord Gáis Éireann, BGÉ, now GNI, my Department funded the installation of underground telecommunications ducting alongside the pipeline. The pipeline and ducting were installed between Ballymoneen in County Galway and the gas terminal constructed in Bellanaboy, County Mayo. Construction took place between 2006 and 2008. In 2013, Shell E&P Ireland Limited, SEPIL, proposed to install fibre optic cable into the duct and to gift that to the State. This process concludes in quarter 1 of 2018. The ducting and cables traverse approximately 500 separate interests in land. GNI managed the ducting build and managed access to private lands for that purpose and also for the laying of the optical fibre cable. GNI acquired access rights over the majority of the private lands but not all. While the network is built, it cannot be fully managed, maintained or upgraded without securing access rights to all lands along the full route of the ducting and cables.

Section 3 provides the Minister, and consequently the MSE, with the necessary rights to enter lands for the purposes of running the Galway-Mayo ducting and cables network. These access rights are described in Schedules 1 and 2 and are limited to those which are necessary to properly manage the ducting and cables network for telecommunications purposes. They are subject also to the obligations contained in Schedule 3. The access rights acquired by GNI on my behalf stand vested in me by virtue of section 3(2) while access to all other lands along and adjacent to the route are granted to me under section 3(3). Gas Network Ireland's rights stand protected by section 3(4) which ensures that GNI's other access rights over the lands such as access to the gas pipeline are unaffected and also section 3(5) which releases GNI from any obligations entered into regarding the access rights acquired by GNI on behalf of the Minister under subsection (2).

Turning now to the matter of protecting landowner interests, sections 4 and 5 provide compensation and safeguards to landowners and ensure that any impacts arising from the presence and operation of the network are minimised. Section 4 provides for a claim for compensation by landowners in respect of any diminution in the value of their land arising as a consequence of the Minister's right of access to the land to tend to the ducting and cables. It provides all landowners along the route with the right to claim compensation on the same terms while also taking account of any moneys already paid as compensation by Gas Networks Ireland.

Section 5 is broader in scope. It provides for a compensation scheme to be established in law to reimburse owners or repair damages caused by the MSE or others working on my behalf. This scheme also provides for landowners to be compensated for any such damages or any injury, loss or disturbance suffered by the owner and caused by the MSE or others in the performance of their duties. This scheme or any amended schemes will continue to operate for the entire lifetime of the ducting and cables. Section 5 also provides for regulations which set out the rules to be followed by the MSE and others working on my behalf in order to ensure minimal disruption to landowners and so that they are given adequate notice when works are planned.

Other safeguards also exist. Section 8 requires that a map of the route be deposited in my offices and made available for inspection by all interested parties. Section 9 ensures that information is given to all landowners and interested parties at least 28 days before enactment and including details of the legislation, the deposited map and how and where to make claims for compensation under section 4. Section 10 details the procedures to ensure that all notices are delivered to the intended parties.

The Galway-Mayo region acts as a landing point for transatlantic cables. Through this Bill there is an opportunity to promote the growth of transatlantic data traffic and, more locally, to ensure that the Irish public, Irish industry and multinational organisations can access dark fibre and ultra-high speed broadband services in the west of Ireland. I am preparing to tender for an MSE to operate and manage the State owned Galway-Mayo telecommunications ducting and cables network via concession agreement. The Bill before the House is the missing piece in the jigsaw that will enable that tender to progress. Its enactment will ensure that the MSE will be able to gain the necessary access to the ducting and cables infrastructure to fully maximise the benefits of the network. Consequently, I commend this Bill to the House.

Deputy James Lawless

Fianna Fáil supports this Bill. We support all measures to improve connectivity to all areas that need it desperately. The measures within it are sensible, necessary, proportionate and will address broadband provision in Mayo and Galway. We had the same difficulties in Kildare North with broadband provision being inadequate in many cases. The problems are replicated in many areas throughout the country so we understand well the need for this Bill. Many of us have said that broadband is a basic service, no more than a power connection, a water supply to the house and other basic utilities were many years ago.

While we support and welcome the Bill, it is specific to a particular project and area and it strikes me that there is potential to go a lot further. I introduced a Bill about a year ago, which has not progressed beyond Second Stage, that would tackle many of the issues raised in this Bill. I refer to site sharing and requiring operators to make available masts, ducting and the kind of materials referenced in this Bill on a national basis and to say that they can be laid once and used many times. It would require planning permission to take note of previous infrastructure in a particular area before a local authority decided to grant or decline an application. In other words, it would encourage and coerce, where necessary, operators to reuse kit and infrastructure so that many providers could use the one set of infrastructure. This would seem to make roll-out a lot easier, fast track roll-out in many areas and tackle many of the practical logistical difficulties that have bedevilled the national broadband plan and made commercial roll-out difficult. It is certainly commercially unviable in a great many areas. I may table amendments on Committee Stage along those lines. It seems there is an opportunity to merge the Bills or certainly take the good of both and submit them as amendments, so I may well return to that on Committee Stage.

We know the national broadband plan is in difficulty, although I hope it is not in too much difficulty. We have had much debate in the House in recent months on where it is at now. We are well aware that it is down to one provider but the tender is yet to be awarded. The Minister, Deputy Naughten, said previously that it was good news because it would mean that shovels would be in the ground more quickly, which is a very optimistic way of looking at it, to put it mildly. I hope he is right because the rural communities and pretty much everyone in the State needs it, so I hope we get to that stage soon.

Previous performance is always an indicator of future outputs. In terms of previous targets, it was stated in 2011 that 90% of homes would be provided with broadband in 2015 and 100% by 2020. That is not on track. The target was reduced to 85% in 2016. Again, we are not on track for that. The Taoiseach recently stated that 75% of homes would be connected by the end of the year. That is 15% lower than was previously stated and it is three years behind schedule.

I will not labour the point but the national broadband plan is well behind. Its reach and timetable are well behind where it is supposed to be by now. We know it is in difficulty, with two of three tenderers withdrawing recently, but we wish it well because it is imperative that it succeeds.

In the same vein, this Bill is a sensible set of measures to address a particular issue in a particular area. We will support it and vote accordingly, but it is essential that the same approach be taken on a national level. It is great that Galway and Mayo and the transatlantic cables will get the priority, but there is an entire country to be looked after as well. I may table amendments on Committee Stage but Fianna Fáil will be supporting the Bill.

Deputy Brian Stanley

I welcome that this Bill is before the House. We would generally be supportive of it and the intention underpinning it. We will table amendments on it as it progresses through the different Stages.

The Bill is technical in nature. We believe the policy in the Bill, which achieves public ownership of telecommunications infrastructure, and the Minister of State's control over that, is sound. Sinn Féin believes in the vital need to have a modern telecommunications framework that would underpin and aid the development of what has become a basic service, namely, high-speed broadband. We know that service is needed in the west in the same way as it is needed everywhere else in the country.

We are behind in the rolling out of the broadband plan. Hopefully, the procurement process will be completed fairly early in the year and that we will see work commencing. While broadband access should be a basic service, unfortunately, 542,000 households and premises are not any closer to knowing when they will get such access but, hopefully, that can be progressed. Our intention is to continue pushing for that.

On the specific provisions of the Bill, it will transfer control of Gas Networks Ireland land and infrastructure to the Minister and will create new interest in favour of the Minister. That seems to be a technical operation. It relates to the Corrib gas pipeline and to opening up the ducting already in place for other uses. However, what may not be technical in operation is the intention of future Ministers. When the Minister of State, the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and I are no longer in this House, there will be the issue of the ownership of the ducting. It is crucial, therefore, that the powers are vested in the Minister under the Act regarding future actions taken with the ducting. That is the key aspect. The State needs to be in ownership of this continually for the benefit of the people, job creation and economic development, particularly in rural Ireland.

What the people of the State will gain from this measure is a different question. Will there be ongoing management to the benefit of the people? Will there be an income to the State from it because private companies will be using it? I understand the Minister stated in the Seanad that it is his intention to tender out the operation. I note that he has named an entity called the management service entity, MSE. It would seem that the intention in the Bill is to establish such an entity to oversee it, but there is a fear that this legislation could pave the way for future private ownership to make the ownership and the rights clearer and make it easier for the Minister, or future Ministers, to sell it off to the highest bidder.

There are many examples of failed private sales in telecoms. Unfortunately, the sale of Telecom Éireann in 1999, which I understand was presided over by the then Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs. Mary O'Rourke, has left a bitter taste and bad legacy in terms of telecommunications infrastructure. As a result of that sale, the State lost out in respect of infrastructure, while citizens lost out financially. It is shocking that so much taxpayers' money was spent building a modern company that underwent a major transformation in the 1980s and early 1990s only to be sold off. As a result of the efforts made by Telecom Éireann workers at the time, we moved from having a completely outdated system under the old Department of Posts and Telegraphs to having the most modern telecommunications system in Europe, if not the western world, as overseas visitors and many people in the industry testified. We do not want a repeat of that scenario. We should not build up successful State assets to have them sold off for short-term gain. Privatisation and previous Governments' short-sightedness in telecommunications have impaired economic growth and failed citizens. If the telecoms system were still in public ownership, the national broadband plan would be much more straightforward.

The privatisation model has failed in telecommunications and has not served citizens. We must not allow asset stripping. Ducting is an important asset for the State, particularly in the counties that will be served.

With regard to the national broadband plan, 542,000 homes and businesses have been left high and dry by delays in the process of rolling out broadband. Farmers, students, business owners and ordinary householders have been left without a broadband service.

Under the privatisation model, we have been strangled by private interests. This Bill creates a particular fear because it will be at a junction of private capitalist interest. We have the transatlantic cable and a growing number of data centres. While the jobs created through these new centres are welcome, the cabling provided for in the Bill will be in close proximity to the proposed data centre in Athenry. These projects encompass large international business interests whose influence should not guide future ownership of any State owned property. Such matters should be guided only by the best interests of the 4.7 million people in this State and the 6.6 million people living on the island. The best return for the people should be the primary objective.

Communications infrastructure will prove essential to economic development, as has been demonstrated over the years. We must strive to have the best possible telecommunications system because, as an island nation, we are out on a limb and need fast and efficient communications networks to overcome this.

Quality of life issues are felt most in rural Ireland where any economic development will also be underpinned by the development of modern communications. Maintaining ownership of communications infrastructure in the hands of the State would give greater control in the interests of people.

Large corporations will be involved in this area. In the past, such companies had significant influence. While everyone is entitled to lobby, we must not forget those whom we have been elected to serve because they are the most important people at the end of the day.

The development of ducting 13 years ago on the instruction of the then Minister was one of the few acts in public policy in recent years that has lent itself to State ownership of telecommunications. The greater public ownership model for telecommunications must be urgently considered and should be the priority path for the national broadband plan. A motion, amended by me, was passed in the House last month. It called for an examination of the feasibility of progressing the national broadband plan through the public ownership model. Under the current model, the number of bids has been reduced to one, which swings the pendulum in terms of bargaining power towards corporate interests and away from the Oireachtas and Minister, although he may protest that the contrary is the case.

While the Bill deals with one artery of infrastructure, we must set about this properly given that we are starting from scratch. We should use the ducting systems for the best purposes in terms of public ownership.

The Bill deals in part with gas infrastructure. Infrastructure is also being installed along water pipelines owned by Irish Water. A cabling and ducting system runs alongside the railway network and some cabling also runs alongside motorways, which are owned by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, formerly known as the National Roads Authority. I presume this cabling will remain in State ownership. Who owns the ducting in place alongside railway lines? Some of this is being used as a backhaul system for the metropolitan area networks, MANs. We also have gas pipelines. I am trying to convey to the Minister of State that there is a significant amount of ducting infrastructure in place. Who owns this infrastructure? Will the agency to which the Minister of State referred manage all of it? Will the taxpayer receive a return on this expensive infrastructure? If companies use it, will local authorities or the Department receive revenue? People will ask this question because it is important. We also have a large State owned electricity network which criss-crosses the landscape. We must consider how this infrastructure can be utilised.

The metropolitan area networks operate in 90 towns and are supplied by the backhaul system. I understand the MANs are in State hands. Is it the Department's intention to draw all of this infrastructure together in a uniform system at some point? The more one studies this matter, the more a picture emerges of a complex tapestry of ducting being run by different infrastructure, whether roads, railways, Irish Water or, as in this case, the gas network. How will it be used to assist in rolling out the national broadband plan, which we all want completed quickly? To what other uses can it be put? Will a dividend be paid to the State or local authorities by companies which gain access to it?

As I indicated, Sinn Féin will table some amendments. The spirit of the Bill is good and we will support it. I would like the areas to which I alluded strengthened to ensure there is no risk of this valuable infrastructure being sold off for short-term gain or for other short-sighted reasons. I ask the Minister of State to address that issue. I look forward to the Bill's passage.

Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (Deputy Seán Kyne)

I thank Deputies for their contributions, particularly their constructive input to the debate.

It is clear those who spoke see the importance and relevance of dark fibre and ultra-high speed broadband to rural Ireland and in particular to the Galway and Mayo region. As they pointed out, it relates to all areas in Ireland.

The support of Members of this House, as was mirrored in the Seanad, has allowed the Bill to pass to the next Stage and it is certainly very welcome. During their contributions Deputies raised a number of issues and they discussed the possibility of putting down amendments on Committee Stage, as is their right. We will engage with those at the time or before that if there are specific matters that Members wish to discuss with officials from the Department. That can be arranged as well.

The premise of the Bill is about ensuring that the infrastructure already in place is retained in State ownership. The short section 2 states:

All the right, title or interest of any person to or in the ducting and cables laid on, over or beneath the surface of land that consists of any part of the route shall, on the coming into operation of this section, stand vested in the Minister.

It is quite clear the purpose of the Bill is to ensure that the ducting in question is retained in State ownership. It is quite specific.

Both Deputies mentioned other areas in the country. I know we recently launched the mobile phone and broadband task force for 2017 and a work plan for 2018. There has been cross-party engagement with entities such as Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, and it is acknowledged that there are areas in the country where new ducting was laid as part of new motorway construction or upgrading where there were gaps in infrastructure. Ensuring that the State has control of vital infrastructure such as ducting is very important, and that task force is dealing with that matter.

To extend this legislation to the national broadband plan would require a Bill to provide access rights to all lands in the country, effectively. Subject to obligations around compensation payments and reparation for damages etc. this would appear to be the "nuclear" option, giving rise to huge costs and having an unnecessary impact on property rights and the implications far beyond the current Bill. This Bill deals with a specific section of cabling between Bellanaboy and a location in Galway. The ducting and cabling is there and in use so this is about ensuring the State has control over that. It is why we are progressing with the managed service entity and we will go to tender to allow this entity to manage the cable in the interests of the State.

The plan will be for the managed service company, MSC, to operate and manage the State-owned Galway to Mayo telecommunications ducting and cables network via concession agreements. The Bill before the House is the missing piece of the jigsaw that will enable the tender to progress. The Bill's enactment will ensure the managed service company will be able to gain the necessary access to the ducting and cables infrastructure to maximise fully the benefits to the network. It is important that this is acknowledged.

With regard to ducting in other areas, anything operated by a State or semi-State company is in State ownership. We can get further clarification on rail-----

Deputy Brian Stanley

Irish Water.

Deputy Seán Kyne

-----and Irish Water. We will revert to the Deputies or give the answers on Committee Stage as it is a valid point and critical infrastructure should be retained by the State. As I indicated, this relates to a particular cable and it will allow the MSC to progress. We must acknowledge the importance of allowing the MSC to progress and I ask that Deputies support the passage of the Bill.

Deputy Brian Stanley

I have a point of order. The Minister of State answered all the questions but I asked for a clarification to be helpful. The managed service entity will operate this and I welcome that the Minister of State clarified the ministerial-----

Acting Chairman (Deputy Bernard J. Durkan)

The Deputy cannot go on. It is meant to be a point of order.

Deputy Brian Stanley

It is a straightforward question. Will the State receive any dividend from companies using this critical infrastructure?

Acting Chairman (Deputy Bernard J. Durkan)

It is not a point of order, although the Minister of State may answer if he wishes.

Deputy Seán Kyne

Yes. It will be managed on behalf of the State. The State will own it and the entity would obviously have a cost in terms of management. It will be part of the agreement and the tender will be put out in due course once the Bill is passed. The terms and conditions of the tender will determine the matter.

Question put and agreed to.