Pre-pay registration

There have been some calls for registering all new mobile phone users. We have expressed our reservations to government on the proposed introduction of a national 3G handset registration scheme.

We believe that a mandatory registration requirement would be a barrier to social inclusion of mobile communications more-over, in the absence of a national identity card system and with the number of operational issues associated with such a scheme, it may fail to address the root causes of the problem.

Although uneasy about compulsory registration, we believe it is right to support measures designed to protect the public. In the UK we already encourage voluntary registration. Ireland already has one of the highest levels of voluntary registration in Europe.