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ComReg faces CAI criticism on lack of protection (of consumers)

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  • 11-03-2008 4:28pm
    #1
    bealtine
    Registered Users Posts: 4,051 ✭✭✭


    http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=IRELAND-qqqm=news-qqqid=31110-qqqx=1.asp


    09 March 2008 By Emma Kennedy
    The Consumers’ Association of Ireland has called on the communications regulator, ComReg, to address its ‘‘underperformance’’ in protecting consumers.

    Representatives of the two bodies will meet tomorrow, after the CAI sought a meeting to highlight its concerns about services in the phone and postal markets.

    ‘‘While there have been significant structural reforms in the telecommunications and postal sectors, with more to come, consumers have not benefited, as was promised,” said James Doorley, chairman of the CAI. ‘‘We are still paying too much, service is patchy, progress in advancing new products is way behind other jurisdictions, and the manner in which complaints are dealt with leaves a lot to be desired.”

    Doorley said the main issues were the continued high cost of mobile phones, poor availability of broadband internet and the high cost of dial-up internet and line rental. The inability to improve next-day delivery rates by An Post and the failure to address poor customer complaint procedures in regulated firms were also of concern, according to Doorley.

    ‘‘ComReg has been in existence for over five years and, by now, we would have expected it to have made significant strides. In some cases, not much has changed since the days when these sectors were run by the Department of Public Enterprise,’’ Doorley said.

    He said one of his priorities as chairman of the CAI was to address the ‘‘underperformance of a number of regulators’’ that have a consumer protection role. ‘‘The hope, perhaps misguided, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was that, once a regulator was established in a particular sector, the consumer voice would be heard and that the consumer experience would be enhanced.”

    Doorley said the CAI would be writing to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, looking for an independent review of ComReg’s consumer protection role, assessing the regulator’s performance to date and making recommendations for reform. ‘‘If that review suggests that ComReg requires greater powers or resources to fulfil its consumer protection role, then the CAI will be the first to support that,’’ Doorley said.

    ‘‘However, if the review suggests that it has the powers and has failed to act, then the CAI will be putting ComReg and the government on notice that, if it does not reform and perform within a reasonable period of time, then it should be stripped of its consumer protection role and it should be given to another body.

    ‘‘In short, it will be a case of shape up or ship out.”


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