Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My apologies for being absent earlier, but I was attending another committee meeting on the issue of local government funding at which I was fighting to obtain more money for county councils.

I welcome Mr. Griffin and thank him for providing a copy of the presentation ahead of the meeting. I will begin by referring to RTÉ, although the issue was discussed earlier.

Many like to bash the State broadcaster. On various discussion programmes one will hear contributors refer to the headline figures for presenters' pay and so forth. That seems to be the popular thing to do, but I do not subscribe to it at all. If we value the national broadcaster, we need to foster it at a time when the traditional media are under immense attack. As politicians, we should be conscious that this issue goes to the very heart of our democracy. In a functioning democracy an integral element is a functioning independent journalistic system. To use a phrase that has made its way into the dictionary, thanks to the man in the office in America, we now live in the age of fake news. We should, therefore, value and foster the traditional media outlets at a time when they are coming under increasing attack. Do we value high quality journalism? Do we value the special "Prime Time" report last week, about which Members spoke this week? It takes investment to commission such a report from respected journalists. When people castigate RTÉ for not being successful in bidding for major international sports events, they forget that it is competing on a global scale and that takes money. When we look at the Comptroller and Auditor General's assessment of the Appropriation Accounts, it comes down to factors such as the television licence fee evasion rate and the intense digital competition. I fear for the State broadcasting service. RTÉ has had to make staff cuts this year. It has sold land to try to tide itself over, but this can be done only once. Does the Secretary General share my fear for RTÉ because of the pressures it is operating under? I know that there was a discussion earlier about service level agreements and so forth, but RTÉ's public service obligations are immense and it must cover items that are not mainstream. We should try to bring balance to our discussion. Has the Secretary General undertaken an analysis of things that could be done to help the State broadcaster?