Mr. Peter Feeney:

The importance of the press in its traditional role of the fourth estate holding to account people in power is relevant in any democratic society. Commercial pressure on our newspapers and magazines has now diminished or is in the process of diminishing the ability of the press to carry out that function. Equally so, the resources available for radio broadcasting and some television broadcasting are not sufficient to carry out that function.

I would hope in the years to come that Government may take some measures to ensure there is a better balance between what the multinationals take out of the country and what they give back in comparison to what the indigenous media do. A good example of that is Sky. I read recently that Sky takes in excess of more than €100 million out of the Irish economy each year. What does it out back into the Irish economy? Practically nothing. It is, therefore, a loss of resources that could be used to ensure that the Irish media have the resources to carry out its function.

Of course, there will be accusations that when one goes down that path, Government will then be funding or supporting the industry through commercial considerations but one can argue that the licence fee does that already for television broadcasting. I find very few politicians who will say to me that RTÉ is on the side of the Government or politicians. They will argue that it is actually too critical at times. I am not sure funding is that significant a factor. The key thing is that the Irish media play an important part in the democratic process and any measure that can be taken should be taken to ensure that they survive a rapidly changing and internationalising environment where resources are going out of the country rather than into it.

Having said that, I am really pleased that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. all have big operations in Ireland. I remember talking to my Dutch colleague recently and telling her that Facebook was just up the road from me and has thousands of direct employers and indirect contractors working in Dublin. She said her problem was that they have nobody from Facebook working in Holland. It is just such a different environment. At least we have it here and we can engage with it. In a way, that is a lever the Government can use. It is a carefully balanced lever, however, because if too much pressure is put on it, Facebook might say it will move elsewhere and that it will be more welcome in another country. Brexit may have contributed to that slight fear.

At the moment, however, all the social media companies have invested heavily in Ireland and are here because they think it works. That gives the Government some leverage to say let us try to see if we can hold companies to account more and see if we can work on the redistribution of resources that are available.

Members will have seen in Australia recently that Facebook agreed to pay newspapers for putting up links to Australian newspaper articles on Facebook. Up until now, Facebook got the advertising and went with that because it was based on clicks. Now, however, it is saying that if it refers to the Sydney Evening Postor whatever it is, it will give some payment to that publication because that information and journalism in the Sydney Evening Post is really attracting people; not the fact that Facebook just put up a link. There are, therefore, signs of improvement but companies will need to be put under pressure.

Earlier, one of the Senator's colleagues questioned how seriously social media companies take this. They respond to pressure and to having to do things for reputational reasons. Therefore, legitimately, they can be put under some degree of pressure.