Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentation. I echo the opinion that the forum on Friday was useful in advance of this discussion. I also echo Deputy Dooley's comments as a certain sense of urgency comes from this, certainly from the members of the committee who were present.

There is a lot that is good in our broadcasting system and we want to protect it. It was suggested that we should take our time but I have a concern that we are not going quickly enough. On the question of transmission rights, my children, who are aged 14 and 17, have hacked into my email account and increased our subscription to Netflix, which they do on a regular basis because they want to go from a one-carry to a two-carry device. I will give out to them when I go home but they will put it back up again tomorrow. I believe the €30 million for Netflix is going to be much higher because it is changing at a rate of knots.

I was going home through UCD the other night and the bus shelters were advertising Now TV, and no-contract Game of Thrones. Mates of mine watched the Lions game on a €10 ticket and I feel we should have been renegotiating with Sky and Virgin five years ago because a negotiating position may go very quickly as companies move to the no-contract rule. My instinct is that we should get content providers to pay their fair share. It is not just about Rupert Murdoch. I listened to a lecture at the Institute of International and European Affairs by an academic from Princeton, Susan Crawford, a few years ago. She is an expert in how these networks are developing and she made the point very forcefully that the networks had to pay their fair share.

How many Saorview viewers are there? When are the negotiations due to take place with Sky and-or Virgin? What is the length of the deals with them - three years, five years, seven years? What will be different if we give the contract for the licence to someone other than An Post? What makes us think somebody else would be successful and produce a big increase in revenue? What additional powers would we want? The broadcasting powers made the system more lenient but does the Department have any other mechanism to increase recoverability?

It was reported in the papers recently that Facebook is looking at going into TV. What negotiations has Facebook had with RTE, or the BAI or others? Is there a prospect it will enter into the on-demand, no-contract TV world that seems to be evolving very quickly? Maybe the process has only started and it has not trickled down to Ireland yet. It is very unusual to throw open a piece of legislation to the committee. How come the Department has not taken a position on it? My advice would be to give the power to negotiate, though we should have done it several years ago.