Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey has rejected Labour Party claims that Government policy on digital television is a "complete wasteland".

Mr Dempsey said that a pilot digital terrestrial television (DTT) project was in roll-out phase and would be operational by the autumn for two years. The project "demonstrates my commitment to the long-term provision of free-to-air DTT in Ireland", he told the Dáil.

But Labour's spokesman Tommy Broughan believed there was a danger that "we will have a re-run of the broadband disaster. We are at the bottom of the EU league for broadband and will be the same for digital TV and broadcasting".

He claimed the Minister had launched a pilot "in the dying days of the Government" and questioned the level of research on the project. Mr Dempsey said, however, that he made decisions "based on what is the national interest, rather than from party political reasons or anything else".

During Communications, Marine and Natural Resources questions, the Minister said his predecessor had launched a competition for DTT in Ireland but "there was no response to that from the private sector. The UK ploughed ahead in a similar experiment and lost some €2 billion." Mr Dempsey said he had "done the research and organised a pilot scheme because I want to ensure that when we do this, we do it properly".

The Minister added that, "if we are going to a full digital television [ system], every house in the country will be affected. If we go that route, everybody will have to change from analogue televisions to digitised sets."

Mr Broughan asked why no decision had been made on a switch-off date from analogue to digital television, since Northern Ireland was switching in 2009.

The Minister said that the EU's 2012 date was a guideline and "clearly there is no point in putting out a pilot, seeing how successful it is, finding out what the difficulties might be, and ignoring all of that by setting a date which is not realistic".