Michael McDowell (Independent)
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Deputy Bríd Smith will have to cut out the red meat. She is dangerous sitting in here.

Coming back to the point, we need to grasp this nettle. We need to spread the cost of broadcasting more fairly. If it was collected in the way I am suggesting, that is as a fraction of local property tax, it would be more fairly, efficiently and definitely collected right across the country. There would be no evasion. It would be impossible to evade it as one cannot evade the local property tax. It comes back and is charged on one's estate or whatever. There is provision for hardship in that tax as well. People can defer it and so on. It is time for the Minister to grasp that nettle. The Minister must come out and say that is what he will do, though he must be more subtle than my good friend, Deputy Pat Rabbitte. He does not need a report from this committee to tell him that it is the way to go. There is no other way to go except to leave the system as it is. There is not some other brilliant alternative floating around. I fully agree with Deputy Stanley that this should not be an excuse for the fee to increase.

It is the taxpayers' money and it must be spent carefully. Some of us have had the experience of being invited out to TV3, which is a somewhat more modest operation than RTE. Perhaps it is in a somewhat less salubrious part of the city. One gets the impression that costs are more carefully controlled in one location than is the case in the other. Standards may be different too. I am not suggesting that one can pay peanuts and get monkeys. That does not apply. As I have said previously, I strongly believe the way to collect the fee is the way I am suggesting. Having said that, I emphasise that the local property tax needs to be reformed. I was interested to hear the Taoiseach saying he intends to fight might and main to ensure it does not increase. As he is in charge, it is not a matter of him fighting might and main. He makes the decisions. He is not facing some other group of people who want it to increase. He can decide whether it increases. If one is living in a very modest house in Dublin-----