Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister could do a lot of us a favour. The suggestion was made by a member from the Opposition, but it would do a lot of us a favour if the Minister was to kill that now.

The Minister knows my views on the television licence. I never suggested a redistribution of the television licence. There is a massive anomaly in public service broadcasting funding. I do not distinguish between RTE and the rest. If they are licenced and carrying out a function, they are public service broadcasters. They provide a service. The GNLR figures prove that. I understand that the Minister is saying that going back to the days of 2RN in the GPO, the Government always had a commitment to the public service broadcaster as defined in the legislation, but that has changed since previous Governments introduced the concept of independent broadcasting. We are way behind the curve in terms of funding. I would have no difficulty with the television licence being ring-fenced for the current use if there was a level playing field, which there is not. It is not level because of advertising and things are stacked against the commercial side. RTE is very aggressively looking for advertising in the market, which it has to do as it has to wash its own face. However, it is competing with people who do not have the €180 million cushion the Oireachtas votes to RTE by way of the television licence. That is grossly unfair.

We have had the RTE authorities in here and they evaded answering the following question. As the shareholder of the company and given his responsibility for a suite of semi-State companies from energy to broadcasting, does the Minister believe it is appropriate for a semi-State company funded on a compulsory basis by all of the citizens who are obliged to purchase television licences that there are still people working for RTE whose salaries will not be disclosed by the public service broadcaster? If it happened in any other element of public administration - the Minister mentioned NewERA - can people imagine the outcry? There would be wall-to-wall coverage from "Morning Ireland" to "Good night, Ireland" on RTE. If the salary of the CEO of Irish Water was not disclosed, there would be consternation, and rightly so. However, we have this protected species operating out of a €183 million cushion who refuse to give the level of accountability that is expected of me, the Minister and everybody else in the public sector. People in the commercial radio world and community radio world, not to mention the private sector television companies, are finding it hard to swallow that RTE will only release their salaries three years after contracts have been signed. If the Minister was to appoint a new CEO of a semi-State company tomorrow and told the Dáil in response to a question from an Opposition Member that he was not going to release that person's salary for three years, he would be walking across the bridge to the Taoiseach's office with a letter in his hand and it would not be tolerated. I have a simple question. Why is the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources tolerating that from our public service broadcaster which is funded to that tune by the taxpayer?