Intervention is the name of the communications game for Dermot Ahern, writes Jamie Smyth

The Government may use its presidency of the European Union next year to amend a key EU broadcasting directive that has enabled BSkyB to escape regulation in the Republic. The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Ahern, says the Government will raise the Television Without Frontiers directive with its European partners if new regulations which come into force in July fail to bring the British satellite firm under regulation.

Mr Ahern is also decidedly lukewarm about the prospect of further privatisations of State companies such as the ESB or Bord Gáis in the lifetime of the current Government.

"My personal view - and I think I would be speaking for the Government - is that into the future we need to be wary of selling off infrastructure, if we are selling anything," said Mr Ahern this week.

He was speaking after receiving an hour-long grilling in the Oireachtas communications committee on the poor state of the Republic's telecoms sector post privatisation of the former State monopoly, Telecom Éireann.

Its successor, Eircom, has not delivered the Government's vision of making Ireland a global "broadband hub" and recently flagged its desire to abrogate its duty to provide a telephone to every citizen.

Doubtless, it is not lost on Mr Ahern that Eircom is now very much a commercial venture. Following its brief life as a stockmarket company it is now owned by a team of venture capitalists. Its primary goal is to generate profits and not to implement Government policy

Mr Ahern may not be thrilled with this turn of events, but he says the responsibility for regulating Eircom rests with the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg). He is sanguine about Eircom's request to ComReg to amend its universal service obligations to the public.

"They are obliged under the legislation to provide a universal service... It was privatised on the basis of the existing situation which is providing a universal service."

Despite some policy successes for Mr Ahern in this area - which include a policy directive that is forcing Eircom to introduce a flat-rate internet service - his experience of trying to implement policy via a privately owned monopoly has probably coloured his view of privatisations.

Mr Ahern has energetically engaged with Eircom since taking up his ministry - dubbed by some as the "Irish communications Tzar" - last year. But at the end of the day, his Department has concluded the best way to implement the goal of improving the State's competitiveness is to build a new telecoms network in towns.

"You can write all the legislation you like but there are practical issues on the ground in relation to getting physical access to the infrastructure," he says. "It is no different whether it is gas pipelines, electricity wires or telecoms wires. It is anything with respect to infrastructure."

This philosophy is guiding the Government's €64 million plan to build fibre rings in 19 towns. Further investment to build another 100 fibre rings will depend on the success of the current projects, which should be completed next year, he says.

Mr Ahern's comments suggest a subtle shift in thinking on the thorny issue of State privatisations. But he insists they are not entirely off the agenda. "We will look at these issues on a case-by-case basis \ there is nothing on the horizon," he continues.

Neither does Mr Ahern accept that the Government made a mistake privatising Eircom or that it would have been better if it were still a public company. "It is easy to be wise in retrospect... What happened in Ireland was done at a time when the telecoms market was at a very high level. I don't think anyone could have envisaged the dramatic downturn."

But the sector that will probably pose Mr Ahern the greatest difficulties over the next four years is energy, and more specifically electricity. At a time when officials at his Department are warning of a shortage of power in 2004-05, new investors in the market are few and far between.

And to make matters worse, the liberalisation of the market is pushing electricity prices up for consumers, rather than delivering the expected savings. Bills due this month will show a 13 per cent hike since the start of the year.

"It is a difficult market and probably the most difficult because of the fact that we are a small market. It's difficult to get in other players," says Mr Ahern.

Price rises were unavoidable due to the high cost of upgrading the electricity network, which has been set at some €2.5 billion. You can't contain costs and at the same time demand the roll-out of infrastructure, he continues.

But fears of electricity black-outs during winter 2004 and 2005 due to a shortage of generating capacity are overblown, according to Mr Ahern. "A few weeks ago I had a long meeting with the electricity regulator on these issues and we looked at what would happen in the interim [before extra generating capacity is built]. Basically this is a combination of measures such as increased imports of electricity, stand-by generation and demand size management measures."

The Government is investigating the possibility of creating an all-Ireland energy market, says Mr Ahern, who has held discussions with Northern Irish officials about increasing capacity on the cross-Border interconnector and possibly building a new interconnector.

"I'd like to drive this forward forcefully," says Mr Ahern, who is TD for Louth and has also floated the idea of an all-Ireland market for digital television.

"The aspect that I want to explore is that the Good Friday agreement said the British government would explore the widespread availability of TG4 in Northern Ireland."

Mr Ahern's proposal envisages setting up a free digital television service which would provide consumers who buy a set-top box access to free channels such as BBC, RTÉ and TV3. But the proposal would cost at least €40 million with serious hurdles ahead over broadcasting rights issues. So why bother?

"I would be conscious of the fact that digital terrestrial television in Britain has had a very chequered history... if we don't do something on this it would, in effect, leave it to others to do."

BSkyB is already providing digital television and has 272,000 Irish subscribers, despite the fact that it is not regulated by ComReg. But this may change if Mr Ahern can persuade his European partners to amend a key European directive called Television without Frontiers.

This directive ruled that satellite providers, such as BSkyB, are regulated in the country in which they are based rather than the state to which they broadcast. Therefore BSkyB does not pay a levy to ComReg and is not subject to price or quality controls, much to the chagrin of its cable rivals.

"There would be a desire to bring Sky under regulation," says Mr Ahern, who believes this will be possible by applying new regulations due to come into force in July. But if this is not possible, the Government would look at the Television Without Frontiers Directive. "If I am personally still in the position, I would like to have a look at this during the term of the Irish presidency."