Telecom Eireann should be compelled to sell its entire 75 per cent shareholding in Cablelink by the year 2000, and the general public should be entitled to buy shares in the cable television company, Fine Gael spokesman on the public service, Mr Ivan Yates, TD, has stated.

Mr Yates said that Telecom Eireann has acted as a "spoiler shareholder" at Cablelink, and that as a result, Telecom has sought not to provide the necessary £100£150 million of investment to update the cable network.

He added that Telecom's current preoccupation seems to be to ensure that Cablelink will not avail of its technological potential to use cable to compete for voice telephony and telecommunications services after open competition is allowed from January 2000.

Mr Yates said that the sale of the Telecom stake in Cablelink should be conducted by the Department of Public Enterprise, and not by Telecom itself. "The objective should be to obtain two strategic partners - one in the area of telephony services and the other with international experience in multi-media cable operations.

"Employees and subscribers and the general public should be entitled to buy shares," he said.