Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The problem I have is that we are dealing with legislation that deals with competition but this section hangs on the fact that there must be competition within the media market but we put no real yardstick or threshold on that. That is a mistake because any Minister or Oireachtas committee can be put under pressure from those same media interests. We have seen media groups exert extreme control over previous Governments. The Bill makes it very difficult for a future Minister to make a strong decision in the public interest on this issue. As far as how to analyse or create an index for media consumption, we have JNLR for print media, Nielsen for broadcast media and so forth so while it may be hard, it is not impossible. Just because it is hard does not mean we should not try to do it. There needs to be some threshold.

I understand the Minister's point about the market being very concentrated anyway because it is small. However, the threshold can reflect that market structure. Regarding the amendment in hand, I believe that there is a problem with the word "prevalent" because it will exclude minorities. The need for minorities to be reflected, with their diversity of cultural interests, in the media is very important. In the context of the section as currently drafted, there is no doubt that minorities who are accepted and respected today would not, a generation ago, have been described as "prevalent". There are likely to be minority groups in Ireland in 20 or 30 years time who are not considered acceptable today who will be present in the future but not prevalent. That is the problem with the wording as it stands. I wish to press my amendment.