Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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All of the issues raised by Deputy Dooley have been looked at in the context of the Estimates process. It would be helpful if he could mention that to the Minister for Finance in his travels through the corridor.

On the reform of public sector broadcasting, we all accept that, in the long term, the licence fee structure is not going to work. It is an old system with old technology for a completely different era. What will the new structure be? I do not know. That is why I am looking forward to the feedback from the committee. I am quite open in this regard. Historically, it has always been the case - Senator McDowell would know this better than anyone - that officials do not want to give away power on policy-making. Instead, they want to be the ones driving the agenda. It is the same in the case of broadcasting. Rather than it being a case of me drawing up proposals and putting them to the committee, I would like to see proposals not just from committee members but also what is coming up organically across the country on this. I want to acknowledge the role the Chairman and the committee played with the recent forum in Dublin Castle on public broadcasting, which was very useful. Let us see if some good, novel and innovative ways to deal with this will emerge from that.

Deputy Dooley is correct the way which information and news is now consumed is different. News is quite expensive to produce. That is not just for the State broadcaster but, as Senator Leyden, said for local radio stations. I had representatives from the provincial newspapers in with me yesterday making that exact case again. For all of us, it is important we have access to verifiable news output. Anyone can make an accusation online now and it can spread like wildfire. We must have some way of verifying it. Some people on the other side of the Atlantic want to introduce some sort of monitoring of the Internet. I think that will be impossible. However, we could have verifiable news sources. That will come at a cost and how it is funded needs to be considered.

On local radio, the committee will deal with the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill next month. This will look at waiving the Broadcast Authority of Ireland, BAI, fees relating to community radio stations. Such stations do a tremendous job. We have the biggest network of community radio stations in the world and still have a significant level of radio listenership. Reducing the BAI fees for commercial radio stations would acknowledge the challenging circumstances in which they are operating. I would like far more flexibility in this regard. We are introducing a bursary for young local radio journalists. I would like that expanded to print journalism as well. We should be proud of the fact that we have excellent quality journalists. The reputation of our journalists is second to none. If one looks at what exists throughout Europe and across the globe, it is all about "clickability" rather than accuracy. We always traditionally had a good standard in Ireland. I would like to see that continue but that comes at a cost. I accept that we should use some of the public service funding to do that.

On Senator Leyden’s point about Dublin-orientated radio gatherings on Fridays and at the weekend, part of the problem is that we, as people from outside Dublin, are not prepared sometimes to participate on such programmes.

At one stage, when I was a member of the party, Fine Gael could nearly put its members in a taxi. The Fianna Fáil Party was in a similar position. It was very difficult for us and we had a responsibility to travel to broadcasting studios. The issue can be addressed by having more broadcasts from outside Donnybrook, which comes at a cost. In addition, politicians and others must offer themselves for interview.

One of the biggest problems I have in filling positions on State boards is that the vast majority of applicants to the Public Appointments Service are, first, men, and, second, based in Dublin. I ask Deputy Bríd Smith to encourage female colleagues to apply for these posts. I also call on colleagues from rural constituencies to encourage people in provincial towns and rural areas to apply for positions on State boards in order that I will at least have a choice. I suspect this is also part of the problem for researchers in RTE.