Internet service providers are not honouring voluntary code of ethics

When we moved into our first house, years and years ago, we needed a phone.

Tue, 27 Aug, 2013 - 01:00

Fergus Finlay is a former political activist and adviser to three governments, the former head of the children's charity Barnardos, a writer and a broadcaster.

I was away from home a lot in those days, and each time I travelled I left behind a wife and very young children. It took nearly three years to get that phone, and a lot of begging and pleading. In the end, we were told we were lucky. We were a priority case, apparently, because we lived in an area where two local doctors had their practices.

And when we got it, it worked some of the time. We had a four-digit number, and if you wanted to ring somewhere foreign (Dublin, for instance) you had to ask an operator to place the call. As often as not you’d be told there was no line available. But still, it felt like a luxury to have a phone in those days —even though there were fees for installation, fees to rent the piece of equipment, and enormous fees for every call you made.