The first television deflector operator should be licensed in about six weeks, the Director of Telecommunications Regulation, Ms Etain Doyle, said yesterday.
Ms Doyle told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport that the operator to be licensed would be Carrigaline-based South Coast Community Television Broadcasting Service.
The Cork company won a legal action against the former minister for communications, Mr Alan Dukes, in the High Court last March. The court quashed Mr Dukes's decision to refuse the company, which served parts of Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny and Tipperary, a rebroadcasting licence.
Ms Doyle was responding to a question from Fine Gael's spokesman on public enterprise, Mr Ivan Yates, who said many people in rural areas had been left without a television service.
Ms Doyle said the introduction of licences for deflectors was necessary "to avoid market disruption and in the interests of providing access to multi-channel television".
She added that licences for deflectors would, of necessity, be of short duration or would be subject to withdrawal at short notice. The exact duration of the licences was not disclosed. On the issue of cable and MMDS operators, Ms Doyle said five companies applied for 15-year licences to develop digital television services. After discussions, one company, Nore/Suir Relays refused to accept the terms offered by her office. She said she regretted that Nore/Suir could not accept the terms, but she had "to move on" and her solicitors would be writing to the company shortly.
Ms Doyle was strongly criticised over the issue of illegal pirate radio stations. She told the committee that her office was aware of more than 60 pirate operators.
She agreed with Mr Yates that her office had not instigated any prosecutions against pirate radio operators, despite having powers under relevant legislation. "This is unbelievable. If anyone tunes into the band between 88 and 92 FM they can hear at least six pirates, most of them affecting the legal stations," said Mr Yates.
Ms Doyle agreed there were "serious problems" but said prosecutions were "difficult to organise under current legislation, which tends to concentrate on the equipment used".
Ms Doyle said the outcome of the recent liberalisation of the telecommunications sector was lower prices. However, this was contested by Mr Emmet Stagg TD (Labour) who said that new operators had "cherry-picked" pieces of the market.
"I have heard many adverts aimed at people with monthly bills of over £100 (€127) and none for anyone else, but I haven't heard the regulator talking about this," he said.
Ms Doyle said a universal service obligation scheme to overcome this was currently being prepared by the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke. She said it would involve all operators contributing to a fund to compensate Telecom Eireann for offering a universal service.
She stated that one of the vital issues facing the sector was "number portability" - where customers are allowed retain their number when transferring from one operator to another.
