Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am not a member of this committee and thank the Chairman for allowing me to raise several questions. I welcome Dr. Travers and wish him well in his new role as chairman of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI.

We all value the independence of the BAI's role, its fairness, proportionality and encouragement of broadcasting to reflect cultural and linguistic diversity. Dr. Travers stated he embraces the principles of the broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and wants to reshape them to assist Irish broadcasting. The BAI, RTE, as well as the Department, always claim it is not possible to have a quota system for the broadcasting of all genres of Irish music, including country. Coming from Donegal, Dr. Travers will be familiar with that genre and its great singers from Donegal, such as Daniel O’Donnell, Margo and everybody else. France was faced with the same problem but it defined its music as a cultural asset and imposed airtime quotas for Francophone music on its broadcasters. It felt its music culture was being Americanised and falling foul of internationalism, resulting in its culture and language being wiped out and overcome. It is extraordinary the way our major radio stations play international pop music rather than Irish music. The introduction of a similar quota system to that in France could be important in helping Irish music. We must acknowledge that Irish music, across all the genres and at a cultural level, has been growing organically out of Ireland.

Will Dr. Travers give consideration to such a quota system to ensure the national radio broadcasters give a fair crack of the whip to Irish and country musicians? Local radio stations dedicate good airtime to country music while they are in a very competitive listenership environment. For example, Midlands 103 FM has the “Country Roads with Joe Cooney” programme every night, giving ten to 11 hours every week, while Shannonside FM has Joe Finnegan and Frank Kilbride broadcasting country programmes. These stations are in a very competitive listenership environment, getting no licence fee but they are giving an opportunity to those musicians, as well as young musicians. This helps grow the industry. Is there any way Dr. Travers will get rid of these platitudinous excuses that emanate out of various authorities, including the BAI, and make a genuine effort to give these musicians a chance? There should be no more lip-service. We pay lots of lip-service to various matters but forget about them. I am like a dog with a bone about this. I must state I do not have any interests in the music industry. I am not a band manager or a musician.