Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is fine.

The other issue is that in spite of what people will say, we get great value from RTÉ for TV licence. Sometimes RTÉ does not sell that enough. I listen to people complaining about paying their licence fee, yet the same people have Sky outside their houses. They are probably paying €1,000 a year for it. They may not realise they are doing that because they pay it monthly. With RTÉ the licence fee is what it is. I do not agree we should increase it, but we get value for money. RTÉ has very good sport, news and politics coverage.

Something we have to worry about now is an uncontrolled media, although RTÉ is controlled. I do not mean it is controlled by government, but it is controlled by libel laws and everything else. We have uncontrolled media in this world now with Facebook and all these new things, where people say terrible things about everybody and get away with it. If RTÉ makes a mistake, at least people can bring it to the High Court or other courts for libel.

One of the questions I wanted to ask was about regional coverage and an issue that arose when I was a Minister. I see Deirdre McCarthy is here. On many occasions it really upset me how some of RTÉ's regional guys could never come down when there was a good news story, but the minute there was a bad news story, they were there. When there was a good story they would come down the day before or the day after, so they would not have to interview a politician. I do not know why that was. I must have upset somebody in RTÉ along the way, because we had a lot of good news stories and what really upset me was to see them coming the day after or the day before to cover it. They would interview anybody but a politician and I would like it if RTÉ tried to correct that. As bad as we are, we are elected by the people and we are there to represent the people. If we are the cause of a good story, we should get the credit. If we are the cause of a bad story, RTÉ will be there quickly enough with the microphones outside our houses. That is just a criticism I have.

Mr. Bakhurst has done a good job since he went in. I am saying this to all his team here. This is a simple thing and it is a bit like with An Post. I will say two things about An Post. The first is it never thought it would have to go out and deliver parcels. It never really wanted to get into that, but that was the saving of An Post in the end. I did a report on post offices and the number one item was that people could not get parcels delivered to them and now it is the one thing keeping An Post profitable and keeping it going. With RTÉ and the licence fee, the Government must look at another way for this to be collected. Whether we like it or not, the way it is being collected has failed. I was at a meeting, and Deputy Conway-Walsh was there as well, about the closing of a post office. The place was packed and I asked a very simple question. I had checked with An Post before I went and I asked how many TV licences were bought in that particular area. I asked people to put up their hands, but they did not, of course. At that time it was a very small number. There was about 20 times more people living in the area and I said three things were happening, which were that some of them had a licence, some did not and the others did not buy it in the local post office. That finished the conversation on the post office. Everything just switched then and we talked about how we could save the post office. The meeting was called to try to crucify the TD and the Minister who were there on the night, but that did not work because of the point I made.

Why will RTÉ not do something about country music when it is so popular here? People go abroad for it. We see what happens when we have American artists coming here. People pay thousands of euro to see them. What is wrong with RTÉ that it will not put on a country music show once a week, once a month or six times a year? I am asking that RTÉ give a commitment to put some of this music on. People want to watch it. People enjoy it. RTÉ does not want to put it on. Mr. Bakhurst might answer that question, if he can.