EU Commissioner Warns Against Complacency In Developing Irish Telecoms Infrastructure

by Lisa Ugur, Tax-news.com, London

27 April 2001

Business leaders were told at a Chambers of Commerce of Ireland briefing in Dublin recently that the lack of Irish telecoms infrastructure will endanger Ireland's development as an e-commerce business hub. Speakers at the briefing were Erkki Liikanen, EU Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, Chambers of Commerce of Ireland Chief Executive Simon Nugent and entrepreneur Annraí O'Toole.

In his address, Commissioner Liikanen warned: 'There is no room for complacency and that much work needs to be done from the Irish perspective. Throughout the European Union we still need to bring down Internet access costs further by fully liberalising telecoms - especially in the local networks. We also need strong action by Member States to invest heavily in IT-skills in order to secure an information society for all. While 2000 was the year of the dot.coms, it is likely that 2001 will be the year of the merger between the new and the old economies.'

However, Commissioner Liikanen acknowledged that Ireland is one of Europe's success stories in the e-economy and that much of Ireland's growth is due to the information technology sector - not only to Ireland's own IT sector, but to the rapid spread of IT companies in the rest of the economy.

Hosting the discussion, Simon Nugent of the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland, expressed concern about the recent retrenchment in the Irish telecommunication sector at a time when investment is urgently required to enable Irish businesses to compete effectively.

Mr Nugent commented on the current abandonment of DSL trials, saying: 'The cancelling of DSL trials is a serious blow for high-speed, low-cost Internet access across the regions and the government must now review its strategy in light of recent events. Failure to do so will have a negative impact on Ireland's overall competitiveness and ambitions to establish ourselves as an e-commerce hub. Without fast competitively priced access to the Internet many small to medium sized businesses will be excluded from the information society.'

Click here for the full text of Commissioner Liikanen's speech.

Recommended