Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I find myself at variance with Deputy Dooley. I am on the opposite side of this. RTE has financial problems and they must be solved. The idea that one part of the resolution is for RTE to tap into the pay TV platforms in Ireland and get an extra bite at the cherry, after receiving over €160 from every taxpayer in the country, is completely unacceptable. It is a question of double payment. We pay RTE €160 per household. For most taxpayers in Ireland it means one has to earn €320 in gross income to pay RTE €160, with the Government taking the other €160 of that €320 to start with. The question of how licence fees are paid or not paid is something we discussed last week and I do not intend to return to it. However, the idea that services such as Sky and the other services represented here should be required to pay RTE for the privilege of carrying its channel on the basis on which they do so at present appears to be completely inconsistent. It is an effort to extract more money from the same product, instead of querying whether the product is viable in its current financial form. Like Deputy Dooley, I support the idea of public service broadcasting but I know, because I have been to TV3's studios as well as those of RTE, that there is a huge job to be done in RTE, which is not to be assisted by throwing lifebelts of a source of funding here or there. It is doing well from the Irish taxpayer.

I pay for the Sky package. I apologise to the other representatives as I do not pay for theirs. Having had three young gentlemen in my house I pay for the full package and get everything. In addition, I am in the happy position that I am also paying the subscription for the old cable TV coming into the house. ITV is on that cable, but it is not on Sky. It is not watched in our house. Nobody even goes hunting for it. The availability of channels, be it on fibre or otherwise, has dramatically improved the TV service to ordinary Irish households. The increase in choice ranging from National Geographic Channel to foreign news channels to arts and culture programmes is hugely beneficial to Irish households. There should be no doubt about that. The viewer's experience is hugely enhanced by TV platforms above the Saorview package, if I may use that term. We cannot be troglodytes - the word "cave" has been used in this context by the former Minister, former Deputy Pat Rabbitte - about this. The world is changing and information is transmitted in very different ways. When the Minister sent this Bill to the committee for pre-legislative scrutiny, he said that this is a matter on which there are two sides.

I want to make it very clear I am utterly opposed to giving in to RTE in these circumstances. It is a man claiming to be drowning and demanding immediate help when he will not actually swim. I know that is probably politically unwise of me to say, given the dominance of RTE in Irish broadcasting, but I really believe there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by a partnership approach to this. I do not believe RTE needs to get into the negotiations in question and I do not in any sense resent somebody telling me that they may play hardball in those negotiations. I know it is not meant as a threat to us. We can vote whatever way we like in these Houses and do whatever we want. I do not resent it at all. I believe RTE has to be told the blunt truth that it may end up as ITV is in my house - off the screen completely. It may then come whingeing that it needs more money because its advertising has collapsed even further. We will then say it did not make that case a few years ago and that it told us this was easy money and an easy way to keep it solvent. It is not. I am very much of the view that we are failing to grasp the RTE nettle. It is hugely overly costly as a service. It needs to stop looking around for different ways whereby ordinary Irish viewers have to subsidise it and instead get its act together about the €160 and about the €180 million it is getting every year. I will not put it any further. I do not really require any response. I am just saying I am on the side of the witnesses.