These are technical amendments to section 11 to resolve a formatting issue in the labelling of subsections within the section. They are minor drafting corrections within the Bill to ensure clarity. They have been remedied with the assistance of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, for which I am grateful.

I thank the Senator for her amendment. I appreciate what she is seeking to achieve, but I do not propose to accept the amendment. This is an oil emergency Bill, and section 21 amends the National Oil Reserves Agency Act 2007 in the context of planning for and responding to an oil emergency. Although there is merit in requiring oil companies to disclose greenhouse gas emissions as well as measures that are taken and planned to be taken to reduce such emissions, doing so would be outside the scope of the Bill. Theref…

On Second Stage, Senator Horkan mentioned that he is unhappy with the term “high-risk vendor”. The criteria comes from the EU toolbox, which uses the phrase “high-risk supplier”, and that is the origin of our terminology. During the passage of the Bill through the Dáil and Seanad, some Deputies and Senators requested that the term “high-risk vendor” be changed. Therefore, I am tabling a number of amendments to the text of the Bill to use the term “relevant vendor” instead and the term “certain vendor” will be used …

I am not proposing to accept this amendment. The Minister routinely consults with the Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg, during the making of regulations which have relevance to its work. The Department and ComReg have a productive and contrastive relationship in this regard. However, mandating the Minister to consult ComReg in all instances where regulations can be made under this Act is not necessary and would fetter the Minister's discretion in respect of his regulation making powers under the Act…

It is crystal clear to me that in one section one has to consult and in the other section one does not. I do not think the two sections are in conflict with each other. I understand what Senator Higgins is saying that one part applies to the entirety of the Act; it does not say that one must not consult. There is simply one section where consultation is necessary and another section where it is optional.

I am not accepting this amendment. It would curtail the Minister's power to make regulations necessary for the functioning of this regime. The primary reason for which we expect the Minister to make regulations is in respect of the adjudication regime to be established under Part 7. These regulations are procedural in nature but they are important in providing the nuts and bolts that will allow the adjudication regime to function on a day-to-day basis. My officials are currently engaging with ComReg on the developm…

We are waiting for a response from the European Court of Justice for a hearing date and we do not know how much it would fine us, what the amount would be or how many days it would be dated to. We are in a situation where we were advised that we could not transpose this legislation through statutory instrument. It is normally done through secondary legislation but because the adjudication process had to be compliant with the Constitution, we were advised we would have to do this through primary legislation. That de…

It is 21 December 2020.

We are considerably late.

This amendment fixes a simple typographical error.

This is not novel legislation. We are not starting to do this here. This approach was taken with the Competition (Amendment) Act 2022. There are considerable similarities between the Bill and that legislation. Section 18 covers a broad suite of decisions, including appeals, namely: appeals against all regulatory decisions of ComReg under the European Union (Electronic Communications Code) Regulations 2022; appeals against regulatory decisions under Parts 2 and 4 of the Bill; and appeals against decisions of the Min…

The situation that currently arises is that a company wishes to supply a service to the public, which the public deserves to receive, but finds it cannot do so because a regulated entity simply uses a large quantity of its cash reserves to frustrate the process in the courts by means of endless appeals, technical moves and so on. For that reason, I believe it is right to apply some kind of test in respect of the right to appeal. Senator Higgins loosely described an alternative approach to trying to solve the same p…

I propose the deletion of the words "public order" from Part 3 in order to ensure that the Minister will have the high bar of national security as a consideration in regard to security measures when it comes to certain vendors under this Part. As I am proposing this deletion, I do not propose to accept this amendment No. 37 in the name of Senator Higgins.

I am opposing this amendment. There are a number of steps in Part 3 involving decision-making by the Minister in the interests of national security. The Minister may assess at any time the likelihood of a vendor being subjected to interference by a third country and during that assessment he or she may consult with such appropriate persons or request any person to provide information. Following this, if necessary to control risks to the security of electronic communications networks or services, which may affect na…

I am not accepting this amendment. Senator Higgins describes a situation where a Minister comes into office and does not even know which relevant vendors have had notices written to the operators on them. Section 32 specifically addresses that because it requires ComReg to issue a report to the Minister on the vendors that have been scheduled under the security measures that have been taken. It has to be done every year. Subsequent Ministers will be aware of which security measures are in operation. The requirement…

This amendment fixes a typographical issue.

I am making this deletion as it was accepted in error. Section 25(3) serves the same purpose by a relevant vendor notice, which will specify that the Minister considers it necessary to take the measures contained in the order to control risks to the security of electronic communications networks or electronic communications services which may affect national security and, where the Minister considers that consultation would be contrary to the interests of national security, the reasons this is so.

I have always envisaged that the report to both Houses of the Oireachtas would contain information on the number of confidentiality orders and appeals as well as further information. However, there will not be any regulations made under this Part. While I am not going to accept this amendment, I will ensure that the information released includes what the Senator has requested and that it will be shared with both Houses and the relevant committee.

I thank the Senator for putting forward these amendments. I propose to accept amendment No. 60 but not amendments Nos. 54 to 59, inclusive. Amendment No. 54 would frustrate the purpose of a section providing for a minimum quality of service. The aim of the provision is to provide a tool for ComReg to use when necessary and if the market does not provide acceptable quality-of-service standards. It is not intended as a tool to be used to set all the standards all of the time. The amendment would require ComReg to int…

I agree with the intention of this amendment and I understand it, because we could have a situation where consumers are receiving automatic compensation payments and then think that is it, they are being fobbed off and do not understand their rights are not curtailed. I agree with this proposed amendment, therefore. I think it is a good one and I accept it.