Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht

General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed)

Ms Tríona Quill:

We did. There are relatively few changes to the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill in terms of what we are bringing into the online safety and media regulation Bill. One change relates to community broadcasters. We were in touch with Craol, the representative group, about that. It is an improvement for that sector. The Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill provided that there would be no levy charged on community broadcasters with an income below €250,000, but we are getting rid of this threshold and making it an absolute point that there will be no levy for community broadcasters. Craol was happy with that. It is also worth noting that some of the provisions around levies were already included in the online safety and media regulation Bill. We are bringing in provisions to provide that the regulator can be part-funded by TV licence fees or, indeed, by Exchequer funding.