ESAT Digifone has denied reports that it is seeking an exemption from the planning laws to speed up the erection of microwave masts for its mobile telephone network, due to be launched next month.
However, a company spokesman told The Irish Times that the "tardiness" of the planning process - with delays of up to 23 months in some cases - was not helpful in meeting the mid-February deadline laid down in its licence to have the new service "up and running".
The spokesman, Mr Brian Harmon, noted that Digifone's competitor, Eircell, had received a six-month exemption from compliance with the planning laws, when it was a "monopoly player and said competition demanded that there should be a "level playing field".
However, he insisted that Digifone had not specifically sought a derogation. Instead, the company had been impressing on the departments of Communications, Justice and the Environment the "vital need" for cooperation in putting "the last piece of the jigsaw in place".
Mr Harmon likened the erection of a network of microwavemasts to the building of the railways in the 19th century, or the ESB's electrification scheme from the 1920s onwards, and said the planning system did not seem to be geared for dealing with such national projects.
But the Safe Communications Council, a coalition of residents' groups opposing the erection of microwave masts, said it would be a nightmare" if Digifone won a planning exemption.
A proposal from Digifone to make use of the existing network of masts for the Garda Siochana's communications network is still being negotiated. But some sources suggest that there are serious difficulties which might require special legislation to resolve.
Meanwhile residents in the Sutton area of Dublin met last night to protest against the erection of a mobile telephone transmission system on a former Cablelink mast adjoining the DART station at Bayside.
Mr Sean Geraghty, of Sutton Park Residents Association, said the mast now belonged to Eircell, the Telecom Eireann subsidiary, which had put security on the site to prevent ESAT Digifone gaining access to it.
