Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief because many of the areas have been covered. I welcome the presentation from Mr. Curran. I am very much a supporter of public service broadcasting. I support fully the remarks Mr. Curran has made about the commercial sector and the issues around the control by wealthy individuals and organisations. That is a difficult challenge RTE must face and one in respect of which the organisation should get more support from the Government and the political process generally. The emergence of the large private commercial sector has implications for balance, fairness, impartiality and accuracy. This is something the Legislature should examine more carefully. On balance, I believe RTE does a hell of a good job. We have had our issues and RTE has been before the committee in respect of these. Rightly, they are dealt with in that way. However, it the case of today that we should recognise what RTE does.

Mr. Kennedy set out the legal case very well and I thank him for the documents with which we were provided in advance. It has helped to take some of the heat out of that particular issue. I have no wish to get into the specifics of the matter but I believe that had RTE allowed the case to run and it ended up costing the organisation tens of thousands of euro, or perhaps more had it run into millions, we would have had the representatives of RTE before the committee and we would have asked why they did not settle more quickly. I maintain it was a job well done in that regard.

Some points have not been addressed, specifically the decision of UTV to come into the television market in this jurisdiction. Obviously, it is another channel similar to how one might view Google, BSkyB or whatever other challengers are around. Does RTE have specific concerns about UTV's presence in the not too distant future, as that organisation has set out?

The representatives from RTE have addressed the matter of the broadcasting charge and that RTE does not have an issue around community radio stations. That point has been covered.

Ms O'Keeffe made it clear that RTE has done cost restructuring. From the documents I have seen, I largely support that view. Streamlining and cost reduction through efficiencies have an elasticity, and an organisation can get to a point where these changes begin to affect the quality of the programme and the type of support structures around the development of programming which are such an important part of public service broadcasting. It is important to allow RTE to have the balance, fairness, accuracy and impartiality that is the bedrock of public service broadcasting. It seems to me that RTE is reaching that critical point below which the organisation cannot go. I say this in the context of the Government's decision, through the budgetary process this year, to reduce the RTE licence fee revenues further by €5 million. How did RTE manage to survive considering that prior to the cuts the organisation had budgeted to include that expected €5 million? Has this had implications for RTE's capacity to continue to deliver on its mandate?

I cannot recall the exact report but one of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland reports which I read some time last summer clearly stated that if RTE was to take on the challenge it had to take on in terms of developing more Irish content, more moneys would be required, including more State funding. Does RTE envisage this coming from the broadcasting charge? Does RTE believe the State will have to assist it in some other way?