Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the committee room. I commend the Future of Media Commission on its work and Professor MacCraith on a brilliant document. It would have been very helpful to have the document in advance of the passage of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022 through the Seanad. I am obviously disappointed. It is a regret.

I will also come to the defence of the recommendation that has been made on general Exchequer funding. The issue of independence has been raised many times over the years when it comes to general funding of RTÉ or public service broadcasting through general taxation. The Department of Social Protection, through the household benefit package, already covers TV licences for 483,000 homes at a cost of €70 million. That is approximately 31% of TV licence revenues. There is no suggestion of interference when we take that into account. TG4 has always been funded by general taxation from the Exchequer. As there is never any suggestion of interference when we think about TG4, I do not accept the argument of interference a whole lot.

There is also the benefit general taxation would have in producing prosecutions. In 2020, there were 9,555 summons. Approximately 4,000 of those cases went to court. Those prosecutions - what a waste of everyone's time - would be done away with through general taxation.

While I know An Post needs the money, those costs would probably not be in the mix through general taxation. It is important that we come to its defence that. Funding RTÉ through general taxation is a good suggestion.

The Minister has said that reform of the television licence together with the accepted recommendations will enable RTÉ to build on its strengths. How much of the gap will be filled? RTÉ reckons that the loss through no-television homes is €35 million along with an evasion loss of €30 million. The technical working group is due to report by November. How much of the gap will be filled by measures it might propose?