asked the Minister for Communications the number of licences granted for the provision of cable television services; the location of each licence; the name of the company involved; the date of each licence; the progress on the installation of the cable system to date; if he has applications for licences pending; and if so, the location of these.

The information sought by the Deputy is in the form of a tabular statement which I propose to circulate in the Official Report.

Following is the statement:

A. Cable Television Licensees

B. Areas intended to be licensed

Letters of Intent to grant cable television licences, subject to the fulfillment of certain conditions, have issued in respect of the following areas:

C. Competitions for licences

Competitions have been held in respect of the following areas but no decision has been made in regard to the issue of a franchise: Dunboyne, Roscrea.

I should like some information on the cable systems and I am sure it is contained in the reply.

The reply contains a long list of cable television licensees.

I am not going to go through the list.

We have an accepted arrangement that we do not have supplementaries on tabular statements. We could not have; it would not make sense.

I want to put a brief supplementary to the Minister arising out of his reply.

The only appropriate question would be to ask the Minister why his reply is in the form of a tabular statement.

I should like to thank the Chair for that information. Will the Minister say how many applications are outstanding at this stage?

Will he give the location of those applicants?

I will not allow those questions.

The Minister is getting away without answering a question in the House.

We had a long sensible discussion in the House on this topic and I thought we had solved the problem.

It was not solved to my satisfaction.

I will let the Deputy have any information he requires.

Will the Minister give me all the information?

All the information possible.