Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank everyone for being here today for this momentous occasion. As everyone knows, we have never had a committee meeting in the Seanad before. The Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, Senator Mark Daly, very kindly offered us this space because of the importance of the topic we are discussing but also as part of the commemoration celebrations of Seanad 100. I thank the Cathaoirleach for extending the invitation and loaning these very beautiful surroundings to us today. It is very much appreciated. It is a lovely change from our committee room which can sometimes feel like a dungeon when we are buried downstairs. Everyone here is well used to our committee rooms but we are in a lovely, airy and beautiful space today.

I thank the staff, most especially the committee secretariat. I will thank them at the beginning of the meeting rather than the end because sometimes we can forget to do so. There is no way this meeting would have taken place without Ms Laura Pathe and her team in the secretariat. They have been in constant contact with the Cathaoirleach, our witnesses, members and the staff of the Cathaoirleach's office to make this happen. I ask for a nice, warm round of applause for our staff.

We have received apologies from Deputies Munster, McGrath and O'Sullivan and also Senator Cassells of all people. Senator Cassells is a journalist and vocal advocate for the industry but he has parliamentary business to attend in Warsaw. He sends his apologies and is very much in support of the witnesses' views. We know their view will be not only comprehensive but also collective. I hope that mindset will prevail when it comes to the future of media, which is the subject of today's discussion. I am delighted we have such a wide range of stakeholders from radio and print media journalism in attendance to discuss and deliberate on the future business model plans and long-term vision for the media sector.

I thank the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad for granting the joint committee the use of the very beautiful surroundings today. The committee is most grateful to be able to join in the series of public consultations that have been and will be held in Seanad Éireann this year to commemorate its centenary. It is an important milestone in our nation's democracy. With that, I will hand over to the Cathaoirleach to speak a few words of welcome.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Chair, Deputy Smyth, and ask for a big round of applause for her for organising this meeting. I welcome our guests. Normally we use the term "witnesses" but "guests" is more appropriate in this context. The concept behind Seanad 100 is to open up the Seanad to the different voices and members of our community and nation and those beyond. When we were coming up with a theme for Seanad 100 it was about minority voices for major change. Some of the minority voices that aired issues that Irish society did not want to hear once sat where our guests are sitting today.

A hundred years ago, the founders of the new State wanted to ensure that the minority voices of the unionist, Protestant and loyalist community who found themselves on the southern side of the Border after partition would have a voice in this chamber. It was not just a voice but a disproportionate voice. Of the 60 Senators, 20 were Protestant, three were Quakers and there was one lady of Jewish faith who was born in a workhouse in London. We had the commander of the British forces in Ireland. The great-grandson of Henry Grattan was a Member of the Seanad, as was a road worker from County Meath. The Jameson and Guinness families were represented here. The Members of the Seanad provided the backbone for the legislative process because the Members of the Dáil were not used to parliamentary procedures, whereas many of those who served in the Seanad from the unionist and Protestant community had experience in that regard. Some of them had worked in Dublin Castle during the War of Independence but the State knew that it needed to rely on their expertise to make things work.

Over time, the minority communities and voices were represented by other people. Members of the gay community were represented in the Seanad by Senator David Norris, the longest continuing serving Senator in the history of the state, at 37 years and counting. He represented the voice of a community that died in our last pandemic when our society, establishment and nation did not want to hear about it and did not want to act. He made them act not only in regard to the pandemic but in relation to gay people's rights.

In the 20 years in which Mary Robinson served here, she made changes that improved the rights of women. In the ten years before she became a Senator, only three women had served on juries. She used her position as a platform to change Irish society for the better. Often, she could not even get a seconder for some of her motions and could not get people to sign her Bills. Those Bills became legislation that many people now take for granted.

The Seanad's job was always to represent minority voices and views. In the modern era, we have Senator Eileen Flynn, a member of the Traveller community who represents those voices and communities. The role of the Seanad into the future will be to take on issues that Irish society often does not want to tackle or hear. The views that our guests articulate as our media are equally important. Our guests represent not only the majority view but also minority views. We are in a time when the media are under massive financial stress but also stress in terms of the truth. Politicians, the media, the Judiciary and all branches of Government and the State are very conscious that in other jurisdictions, the truth is often not getting out. In some capital cities, one cannot buy a newspaper so the content of one's phone becomes the reality.

Given the many challenges, local and national radio and print media in all its formats are vital to the very foundation of democracy.

That is why it is appropriate that we welcome representatives of radio, print media and journalism to the Seanad Chamber on the 100th anniversary. They are more than welcome to come back next year and every other year because our idea is to open up the Seanad. We have had children and people from Foróige in the House to speak about the climate action and climate justice issue and people from Northern Ireland to discuss the constitutional future of the island. In Seanad 100 we are glancing back but looking forward. We cannot look forward without having the fourth estate, which challenges and questions the viewpoints of the majority and the establishment view to ensure things are done correctly. Often, unfortunately, groupthink took over and things did not happen as they should have. We all know the consequences of that for society and for the individuals affected. The role of the media is hugely important now, in the past and most importantly into the future because without a free and independent media and a media that can sustain itself, we would not have this democracy and we are one of the few countries in the world. Only a dozen have had continuous democracies for the past 100 years. We must ensure we protect it and media is one of the key elements of a functioning democracy that questions authority. Without that questioning we will not have the country we want or deserve.

I will hand back to the Chair. The committee is most welcome to the Chamber of Seanad Éireann.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Is the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad not wonderful, with the history he knows of the place and how he can so easily transport it to the subject we are discussing today? It is true that the reason for this meeting is that we believe in truth and transparency and the important role the media play in our democracy. We are passionate about that and will do whatever we can to support media organisations to continue to do that. It is equally important to welcome my colleagues, all of whom the witnesses will know. Deputy Dillon needs no introduction and we also have Deputy Mythen, as well as Senators Murphy, Malcolm Byrne and Warfield. I thank them for attending the meeting to listen to the witnesses' contributions. In the same way as at any committee meeting, people may come and go. It is not a reflection of what the witnesses are saying or anything like that. We have a long session today and my colleagues are involved in other business in the Dáil and Seanad and other committees so please bear with us.

With the ever-changing landscape of radio and print media journalism, the committee is delighted to welcome the witnesses to the Seanad Chamber today as we look to engage with the impacted parties and gain invaluable insight into what we consider necessary to build sustainability into the fluctuating media sector. The committee met the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, on 14 September 2022 to discuss the final report of the Future of Media Commission, the independent body established to consider how broadcast, print and online media can remain sustainable and resilient in delivering public service aims in the next decade. On foot of those discussions with the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, the committee agreed it would convene a series of meetings with media providers, civil society groups and other relevant stakeholders to discuss future business-model plans and long-term vision for the media sector. A diverse, vibrant and independent media sector is essential to our wider society, democracy, cultural development and social cohesion. The committee is eager to hear from a large range of voices on these issues of vital national importance. The committee looks forward to hearing first-hand the views and recommendations of stakeholders from radio, print media and journalism on how this much-valued sector can be supported, protected and maintained for the next decade.

I am therefore delighted to welcome the following witnesses to the Seanad Chamber on behalf of the committee. From CRAOL, I welcome Mr. Jack Byrne, honorary president; Mr. Jeff Murphy, vice-chairperson; Mr. Brian Greene, technical adviser; Ms Mairéad Cullen, co-ordination committee member and Mr. Patrick Quinn, treasurer. From the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, IBI, I welcome Mr. John Purcell, chairperson; Ms Fionnuala Rabbitt, of Highland Radio; Ms Gabrielle Cummins, of Beat FM; Mr. Simon Myciunka - I hope I am pronouncing that correctly - CEO of Bauer Media Ireland; Mr. Kieran McGeary, station director of Cork 96 and C103; Mr. Gerry O’Sullivan, Radio Kerry; and Ms Teresa Hanratty, Learning Waves. From Clare FM I welcome Mr. Ronan McManamy, chief executive. From the Dublin City University, DCU, institute for future media, democracy and society, I welcome Dr. Dawn Wheatley, assistant professor at the school of communications. From Dublin Digital Radio I welcome Mr. Seán Finnan, co-founder; and Ms Laetitia Deering and Mr. Robbie Kitt of the radio's steering committee. From the National Union of Journalists, NUJ, I welcome Mr. Séamus Dooley, Irish Secretary; and Mr. Ian McGuinness, Irish organiser. From Local Ireland I welcome Mr. Bob Hughes, executive director; Ms Linda O’Reilly, editor of The Anglo-Celt; and Mr. Frank Mulrennan, CEO, Celtic Media Group. Finally, from NewsBrands, I welcome Mr. Colm O’Reilly, chair of NewsBrands and chief operating officer at Business Post Group; Ms Sammi Bourke, chief operating officer, Irish Farmers Journal; Mr. Conor Goodman, deputy editor at The Irish Times; and Mr. Mark Deering, head of corporate affairs at DMG Media. I also welcome Ms Ann-Marie Lenihan, who joins us in the Public Gallery.

The format of the meeting is that I will invite witnesses to deliver their opening statements, which should not take more than five minutes. This will be followed by questions from the members of the committee. The witnesses are probably aware that the committee may publish the opening statements on its website.

Before I invite our witnesses to deliver their opening statements, I wish to explain some limitations regarding parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or of those who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

We will proceed with the opening statements. I invite Mr. Jack Byrne of CRAOL to commence. He is very welcome as our first speaker and witness.

Mr. Jack Byrne:

I started to type my statement this morning and I timed it. It was 12 minutes long so I decided to hone it some more. The Chair will be pleased to know that I expect to come in under schedule.

The core mission of community media is to generate a social benefit with communities, not for communities but with them. For clarification, this shows a clear difference between community media and commercial media. The work we envisage for media has no real commercial value. Its importance lies in community ownership and control of content around civil discourse on local issues. Our ethos is based on the right to communicate using all available media and these tools include new digital platforms, which in light of the Future of Media Commission report, we must address. We are now exploring a future of diverse platform-neutral analogue and digital production and dissemination to build multimedia community-media hubs, combining physical and virtual centres. We are looking ultimately to the benefits of a growing network of such hubs as envisaged by the Future of Media Commission report. These community-media hubs - each building around an existing community radio or community television channel - will expand existing facilities where innovative ideas meet community development and digital technologies to generate creative solutions at grassroots level. However, and there is always a however, such exploration is hampered by a lack of resources. The potential for such media use is impeded when community media activists spend far too much time chasing sustainability funding. The Future of Media Commission report notes the current precarious funding available to community media and offers a general approach that would suit our community media needs. The commission envisaged targeted support for public service content providers. As limited funds are available, whatever the funding model we finally achieve, funds will be limited. A targeted approach makes sense and we propose that selected content for funding should be the benchmark. Community media already benefit from targeted State support, mainly through Pobal. This approach should be enhanced. This community development approach is a unique cost-effective form of media.

The basic business model was never sufficient to realise its enormous potential and it is now becoming even less feasible within the evolving media landscape. We need a funding and regulatory model that will acknowledge the strategic value of community media in reinforcing equality, diversity and inclusion in our communities. To give a few examples, having a standing media fund as proposed that operates on the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion would allow the funding authority to operate various schemes targeted at media sectors and meeting agreed content outputs. There is only another half-page of the opening statement to go.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Byrne is doing great.

Mr. Jack Byrne:

In light of our status as the last mile of public services media, we should receive a small fixed proportion of the licence fee. With the licence fee issue up for discussion, we feel it is an opportune time to resubmit this proposal. The report also suggests a community media fund and this fund should ensure we can archive the voices and stories of communities, and can continually innovate and engage with youth on these new platforms. We can explore forms of journalism that are both investigative and campaigning. Under the EU's revised audiovisual media services directive, a proportion of the proceeds derived from the content levy should be used to support and expand the social benefit potential of these emerging community media hubs. Specific funding should be targeted to enable hubs to improve equality, diversity and inclusion, EDI, by the proposed establishment of a diversity board in each hub to adequately reflect gender and socioeconomic diversity. The community media fund should also see portions of departmental public service advertising ring-fenced for community media. This form of advertising is more compatible with the ethos of community media.

Collaboration between Departments and community media was evident during the recent Covid-19 pandemic. CRAOL was contracted to translate, record and broadcast Covid-19 advertisements in foreign languages like French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Mandarin, Russian, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and Portuguese. I almost ran out of fingers. We were able to broadcast to these communities at very little expense to the HSE or the Department. We also did similar recordings for the Central Statistics Office, CSO, in relation to census 2022. I have run out of fingers, but we included the Ukrainian language in that. These are the sorts of cost-effective synergies that will be available to the State thorough a properly funded community media sector. It would ensure community media has the freedom to continue to promote plurality and innovation in the interests of the common good and to reinforce our support for community, creativity and development.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Byrne. He has made many invaluable points that my colleagues will want to extrapolate on. We will go through all of our speakers first and then give time to committee members for questions.

Mr. Jack Byrne:

I thank the Chair.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Byrne was very good at sticking to time and set a very good precedent for everyone else.

Mr. Jack Byrne:

I know I ran out of fingers.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome Mr. Purcell of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, IBI, and invite him to give his opening statement.

Mr. John Purcell:

I thank the Chair. I thank the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, Senator Mark Daly, for having us here today. We are delighted. I also thank Mr. Byrne and many of my themes will be similar to his. Resources, sustainability and viability are the things that will make sure we have a future. I am delighted to be joined by colleagues representing local, national and regional stations, all of whom are members of the IBI. Hopefully there will be a chance to talk to some of them later. We have people from the north, south, east and west. On our listenership, approximately 3.1 million people tune in each week to the stations we represent. It is important to put that in context. All too often the debate surrounds social media but not everyone is stuck in social media every day. The facts about media consumption may be surprising. Recent research by Ipsos MRBI shows that 78% of the population listen to radio every week, and 34% of the population spend time on Facebook, 30% on Instagram, 12% on TikTok and, if Mr. Musk is listening, only 10% of the population use Twitter. The average amount of time spent listening to radio daily is 4.3 hours. We are not complacent and we recognise the challenges we have in retaining and growing our listenership, particularly among younger demographics, but we feel we are performing better than we are often given credit for.

We see the glass as half full rather than half empty. We face enormous pressures on our sector. We got through Covid-19 well but we are perhaps entering a more dangerous stage now. My colleague Mr. McManamy will talk in quite stark detail about the pressures facing local stations.

The debate on radio and the media in general is very important to our society, democracy, culture and identity. I will talk a bit about future funding schemes for radio; what we learned from Covid-19; and, when we have viability and sustainability, how we can contribute to a vibrant Ireland. We would like to thank once again the Government and politicians for their support during Covid-19 and we learned quite a lot about funding from that. It is essential in the future that any funding schemes have an appropriate element of the funding ring-fenced for radio. The design of schemes is very important and they need to be fit for purpose. The Covid-19 Sound and Vision scheme showed how this can work. Future schemes must support live programming. The concept of additionality must be changed and the schemes must be practical and user-friendly.

The Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022 is getting a lot of attention at the moment. We thank politicians of all parties and indeed this committee for their engagement. We have achieved a lot of progress on some issues. However, the issue of the levy remains outstanding. We believe this is a very modest ask. Unless action is taken soon, the situation regarding how the new regulator is funded next year, specifically, will be grossly unfair. We want to see the removal of the broadcasting levy as a significant cost in the same way as it has been removed for the community radio sector. We note the responses made by the Minister to a large number of representations made on this issue, in relation to other funding supports being available and the new funding schemes coming down the line. We do not accept those and would be glad to outline the reasons for this in more detail later. As it stands, next year the independent radio sector will continue to pay the levy to fund regulation while social media giants and online operators will be funded by the Exchequer. This is grossly unfair and we seek a suspension of the levy for next year and the passage of an amendment which will allow for a review of the level of levy paid the following year. We believe this is reasonable.

There are also issues over the equality and equity of regulation and how we are regulated vis-à-visother media. We would be happy to take questions on that later. We would like to stress, beyond the issues of sustainability and the struggle of keeping going on a day-to-day basis, how radio would like to play a continued and vibrant role in the development of Ireland over the next 100 years. This cannot be taken for granted. The manner in which the challenges of viability, sustainability and keeping the show on the road are addressed is of critical importance. There can be no complacency about the continuation of services provided by our members. As I have said, they have a weekly audience of 3.1 million people in this country. Those people deserve to have the services they use supported and continued. Unless the relevant changes are undertaken, however, we will unfortunately be looking into a future of reduced services and a resulting negative impact on our democracy.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Purcell. He has given us some stark reminders of where we are at in terms of funding and the sustainability and long-term future of the sector. I now invite Mr. McManamy from Clare FM to give his opening statement.

Mr. Ronan McManamy:

I thank the Chair and the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, Senator Mark Daly. I am the chief executive of Clare FM and Tipp FM. I thank the committee for its invitation to attend this meeting and its ongoing interest in the sector. I strongly endorse Mr. Purcell's points. My colleagues in IBI and I are united in our desire to protect our industry and to continue to provide the service demanded by listeners. I will try to give a sense of where stations such as Clare FM and Tipp FM are at and, more importantly, what the future holds. Later I will zone in on news and current affairs in particular, and the financing that is currently available to us.

After an uncertain start, most stations in Ireland are now well established, performing very strongly from a listenership perspective, and providing a very valuable public service. We have a depth and breadth of service unlike anywhere else in the world and we have created something really unique. More importantly, we provide a valuable public service within relatively small markets. We play a key role in the democratic process at local, regional and national levels.

Most stations in Ireland, after an uncertain start, are now well-established, performing strongly from a listenership perspective and providing a valuable public service. We have a depth and breadth of service unlike anywhere else in the world and we have created something unique. More importantly, we provide a valuable service within relatively small markets. We play a key role in the democratic process at a local, regional and national level. We provide a balance to the misinformation that currently thrives on social media and, most importantly, we play a critical role in local communities by supporting local charities, businesses, sporting organisations, the local arts sector and so on. From a listenership perspective, we are in a good place. We are resilient and entrenched in our communities. This was clearly highlighted during the recent pandemic when we were able to get key messaging across on a trusted medium within minutes of receiving it. Credit for where we have got to goes to the talented people working in the sector; the BAI that has overseen the orderly development of the sector; and politicians who have made some key interventions over the years, none more so than the funding we received during the pandemic. We are grateful for that.

However, we cannot take the current situation for granted. While listenership is strong, the financing of stations is under significant pressure, with most local stations now making modest profits at best. This has an obvious knock-on effect on investment in programming and staffing. The advertising market has changed dramatically with more than half of all national budgets now going to digital operators that have little oversight. At a local level, advertising spend has been challenged by Covid-19 related issues and the cost-of-living crisis. One of the main challenges for local stations remains the financing of local news and current affairs. Local stations in other countries tend to be music-based with no current affairs and a handful of news bulletins per day. The BBC recently announced plans to reduce its local programming on its local network to just two shows per day. We cannot take what we have created for granted. We do not want to go that route. Funding to protect news and current affairs output in the independent sector is urgently required.

We are often told that this funding is already available through the sound and vision scheme but historically this has been of limited benefit to the sector. While well-intentioned, the funding available includes significant administration for small amounts; is unsuitable for the live environment we operate in; and is prescriptive in terms of the type of programming that funds can be used for. In general, it applies to short-term funding for additional programming and cannot be used to secure the output we have already proved provides a valuable public service. There have been some positive developments in recent times however, with a ring-fenced round for Covid-19 and an industry-wide application for Irish music month but further reform is urgently required. It was good to see journalism in Ireland being supported through the recent VAT reduction on newspapers but our journalism also needs recognition and support. It is worth noting that the manner in which this funding was made available trusted newspaper operators to allocate up to €39 million in annual funding to where they thought best, without providing any guarantees on public service outcomes. Unfortunately, when it comes to radio, there is huge frustration about the hoops we have to jump through for assistance despite us having no issue in justifying how public moneys are allocated.

Schemes were recently recommended by the Future of Media Commission and these should be accepted by the Government. These include local democracy, court reporting and news reporting schemes as well supports for digital transformation. These schemes are welcome but the devil is in the detail. It is vital we learn from the sound and vision scheme and ensure these are adequately funded and have administration proportionate to the amounts involved. More importantly, amounts should be ring-fenced for radio and direct funding for existing public service elements given serious consideration.

Irish radio stations provide a valuable public service at a local, regional and national level and this needs to be protected long into the future. There are opportunities to achieve some of this through funding that is already in place or proposed but schemes need to be less about reprogramming our stations and more about directing funding to where it is needed.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I have no doubt that presentation will inspire some good questions from my colleagues. At this point I will take a moment to welcome Senator Carrigy, Deputy Griffin and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, who have joined us.

I call on Dr. Dawn Wheatley to address the committee on behalf of the DCU institute for future media democracy and society.

Dr. Dawn Wheatley:

I thank the members of the committee for the invitation to contribute today. I chair the BA journalism degree in the school of communications in DCU which is the country's longest-running journalism degree. I am also a researcher with the institute for future media democracy and society in DCU where, in collaboration with the BAI, since 2015 we have produced the annual Reuters digital news report for Ireland. This survey of the public provides crucial audience data for more than 30 countries about consumption habits and attitudes towards the news. Given the focus of this meeting, it is worth noting that 16% of Irish people pay for online news content, growing just five percentage points in the past five years and in line with the international average. The authors of the main report suggest there is something of a levelling off in international subscription and membership payments after almost a decade of incremental growth. It is clear that for a multitude of reasons we cannot realistically expect the majority of audiences to ever pay for online news subscriptions, let alone multiple subscriptions. Factors such as news avoidance, where people may mistrust the news or find it too negative, are core sectoral challenges impacting on people's willingness to consume news, let alone to take out subscriptions.

To mitigate this, the role and investment of RTÉ and public service broadcasting remains crucial but broader State support is needed. Much of this has been well covered in submissions to the Future of Media Commission and its recommendations which we in the institute welcome. I urge the committee to ensure many of these recommendation are swiftly implemented, especially as mentioned, the local democracy, court reporting and news reporting schemes. I also encourage the committee to ensure the journalism arising from these supports is not pay-walled by news outlets.

There are genuine democratic concerns about segmenting content and audiences between the "will pays" and the "won't pays" or "can't pays". I fully recognise the economic requirements and understand the rationale for pay-walls from news producers. However, given the scope and context of the discussion of this committee, I urge it to consider what has been called the ethical implications of a so-called elite pay-walled press. Ultimately, we should be mindful of further fuelling a two-tier news landscape in which those who are willing or able to pay will see one version of events with increased depth, analysis and verification, whereas the majority receive a tier of information which may lack the same substance, accuracy and rigour. As it stands, high-quality Irish news is still freely available but we should be mindful of industry trends.

As regards specific supports, others present today may outline the practicalities of what could help their respective sectors. I will add one overarching recommendation as a condition for outlets receiving new State supports which is to embed a specific public service obligation around transparency. If we position journalism as a public service, I propose it should have a public service obligation in the form of transparency about newsroom processes and ownership. The media ownership database developed by my colleagues in DCU is an invaluable external resource but it is essential that additional institutional-level information is hosted and provided by the organisations themselves.

We are at a critical juncture for news funding and we have the opportunity to enhance the landscape for both journalism producers and audiences. What this could mean in practical terms, is that recipients of any new State supports would adhere to a code of conduct regarding transparency. On their websites, news outlets should have to make clear certain information about their ownership, editorial structures and processes. These might include funding or owner information; other corporate interests; a list of named editorial staff and their roles; a clear corrections policy; an archive of major online revisions; company policies on branded content or native advertising with clear visual examples; policies on how anonymous sources are used; and employment diversity statements. These are some ideas and further potential transparency indicators can be seen in the newsroom transparency tracker, which I provided a link to in my written submission. I recognise that some outlets are already doing elements of this in an ad hoc manner but there are many shortcomings as we look across the sector.

Ultimately sustainability in the media sector is about more than just financial stability and revenue. That underpins how feasible it is to complete journalistic work but we also need to ensure sustained engagement and trust from the audience side. This symbiosis between an effective, viable news media and an informed, trusting public is at the core of a functioning democratic media system.

Every year I talk to my students in DCU about the shifting news landscape, from the move away from advertising to the influence of social media platforms on both newsrooms and audiences, all of which are challenges for the news sector. I have also taught a class called entrepreneurial journalism, where alternative revenue models are to the fore and students come up with project ideas for sustainable journalism-related businesses. There are many causes for concern in the industry but one positive to finish on is that we still have creative and curious students who, despite the well-documented issues, remain eager and excited to be part of this sector.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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What a lovely note to finish on. The future is still bright despite our challenges. I thank Dr. Wheatley for that. I will now invite Mr. Finnan from Dublin Digital Radio to deliver his opening statement.

Mr. Se?n Finnan:

I thank the committee for this opportunity to speak. To give some background on Dublin Digital Radio, we are a community Internet radio station. First, that means we broadcast exclusively via the Internet rather than over the air on FM. Second, as a community Internet radio station, we are independent, not-for-profit, and run by and for our community of interest. The station seeks to provide a platform for music, artists, and conversations that are not given voice in the established media. Our community is made up of people interested in, among other things: new currents in contemporary media and sound cultures; experimental and left-of-field music; DJs, musicians, labels and collectives from communities around Ireland and abroad, with a particular focus on electronic music; radio art, sound art and radio plays; and those who are interested in broadcasting, community radio and independent media. While we specialise in contemporary electronic music, the radio shows we broadcast give a platform to the music-makers, musicians, artists, producers and labels that contribute to creating a vibrant cultural space in Ireland.

We started Dublin Digital Radio in 2016 because we were frustrated that the wealth of this high-quality, interesting and innovative music that we were coming across was not really given a space on national airwaves. We wanted to create a station that gave space to the variety of innovative music as we felt it deserved an audience. Our objective is to create both a domestic and international audience for contemporary Irish music and sound art. We consider ourselves a nurturer of this music in Ireland and a space for artists to share their work, find an audience for their shows, create networks between the different nodes of music creators here and abroad, and to make people aware of the richness of Ireland's electronic music heritage.

Since its founding in 2016 the station has been awarded best Internet radio station in the world by Mixcloud while our work has been lauded in national and international press. The station has been described by Ms Una Mullally of The Irish Timesas one of the most important cultural entities in the country.

As a community Internet radio station we are legally incorporated as a company limited by guarantee, CLG, and operate with a co-operative ethos. The station's operations are funded entirely by resident and listener donations. This is supplemented by any income we get from the regular events we host. In the past two years we have also received grant funding for three specific events and we ask all radio hosts to pay €5 per month towards the station's upkeep but we do not prevent people from doing shows if they are unable to pay so this ties into our community ethos. We consider the people who make regular donations to the station to be our members. All are invited and encouraged to get involved in the station through day-to-day volunteering or by attending and participating at the annual general meeting, AGM, and other events. The station is operated entirely by volunteers and is overseen by a steering committee that is voted in at the AGM.

Our volunteer model and outward-facing approach to new volunteers has served us extremely well over the past six years. It has helped to ensure the station keeps going as well as ensuring a diversity of experience and perspectives are involved in the station, the programming of the station, and the station's day-to-day operations. Our ambition is to keep expanding our membership so as to be able to hire a station manager who can manage some of the day-to-day administration because the station has grown substantially since its founding in 2016 and is operated by a core group of approximately 30 volunteers. However, this work is not sustainable in the long term and balancing the day-to-day operations of the station with long-term objectives can be difficult for a group of volunteers.

This is why we welcome the Future of Media Commission's recommendation to establish a community media grant scheme. We believe community media does invaluable work in fostering communities of interest and creating space for new cultural and artistic work. As much of this work cannot, in its early stages, be supported by the market, it is imperative the Government recognises the value of the community media sector and responds in kind through the establishment of the community media grant scheme that would supplement our membership model and not undermine it.

We also welcome the commission's recommendation to establish community media hubs. In our experience, through endeavours such as our monthly open studio days where we provide access to our facilities and host workshops on how to use our equipment, we can see the immense value production training and community interaction can have for both the media organisations and the members of the public. Community media spaces can be indispensable in creating spaces for media literacy, cultural exchange, media production skills, and community building. We also note the relative accessibility and cheap nature of Internet radio production and believe it can be an invaluable way for communities to create radio and build their own means to share news, stories and their culture that is independent of the monopolisation of the internet by the social media giants.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Finnan. I am sure his statement will inspire a lot of questions when we get to that point. I call on Mr. Dooley of the National Union of Journalists, NUJ. It has been a long time since we have heard from him, perhaps three weeks ago. He is very welcome back and we look forward to hearing what he has to say.

Mr. S?amus Dooley:

I thank the Chair and members of the committee. In 40 years of journalism, I have never heard Deputies so excited about getting a seat in the Seanad. They normally try to avoid the place.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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That is an exaggeration Mr. Dooley.

Mr. S?amus Dooley:

Many of the issues relevant to this debate that have already been raised formed part of my contribution to the debate on the European Media Freedom Act on 9 November and I had not expected to be back with the committee so soon. The issues raised so far are relevant to the NUJ and we would share many of the concerns raised and many of the views expressed as part of the work being done in DCU.

The issues of low pay, precarious employment, and the concentration of ownership, notably in the regional newspaper sector, are all factors which shape the media landscape in Ireland and I want to emphasise that journalism is in crisis. It is an irony that at a time when the need for professional, authoritative journalism has been widely recognised, journalism itself is becoming an unattractive and unaffordable profession. Print journalism, in particular, has seen an exodus and we as a union are deeply concerned at the loss of experienced journalists and in particular specialist correspondents. This is a function of low pay, the merger of roles and functions, and in some cases mergers in print and titles, combined with the denial of the right to collective bargaining, including by some members of the organisations represented here. We are not always allowed in the same room. In raising this, I realise I am a minority voice.

In Ireland the NUJ's Irish executive council, IEC, has hosted a number of events under the title Journalism Not Just Busin€ss and I want to apologise for the absence of the IEC Cathaoirleach, Siobhán Holliman. The philosophy of Journalism Not Just Busin€ss informed our approach to the committee's timely discussion. On World Press Freedom Day in 2020 we published a recovery plan From Health Crisis to Good News. That recovery plan stands the test of time. We called for a Government-led strategic plan to rescue the media and I echo that today. In different ways, we are all saying the same thing. We called for a reimagining of the State's role in: facilitating a diverse, vibrant and independent media; enabling public interest journalism; and looking for new solutions to secure employment in the industry.

We believe, and the commission's report vindicates this, that public interest journalism is a public good that must be protected. There is agreement on that but perhaps disagreement on how we get there. There is now an awareness that journalism is a public good. We need policies and measures to protect the regional press and specialist publications across all platforms. In this regard I welcome the reduction to 0% VAT on newspapers as a positive step but it is entirely wrong that periodicals are excluded from that. While this is a budgetary measure, I think it is also an issue of relevance to this committee.

The Future of Media Commission's report had many initiatives which we welcomed but on my previous outing I expressed disappointment at the decision not to implement recommendations in respect of public service broadcasting. I also expressed concern at the wide-ranging nature of the huge responsibilities attached to the media commission which will have, in my view, far too wide a brief. The vast powers in respect of regulations, licensing, standards, safety, training, development, aspects of competition and ownership and the promotion of diversity and inclusion is untenable and grants too much power to one agency that is appointed by the Government.

In our submission, we proposed the creation of a training and development agency for the media sector and that the important separation of roles and responsibilities should be considered. All of those issues have been raised across the community sector, print and broadcasting. All of those issues could be addressed. There is a need for a separate training and development unit.

While piecemeal measures, such as those contained in the budget, are to be welcomed we are concerned at the lack of detail around the funding mechanisms, the criteria used for allocation of funds, and the absence of consultation with industry representatives. In particular, we believe there should be specific measures to ensure those who receive State funds should adhere to basic principles. We believe no public money should be made available to firms making compulsory redundancies, cutting pay, giving executive bonuses or blocking trade union recognition.

We also believe the issue of concentration of ownership must be addressed. This has now become a crisis. In that regard, our proposal that the conferring of community value status on local papers is one that is worth revisiting. This ensures that titles are preserved for potential community ownership rather than automatically being prey to large monoliths swooping in, with very limited action by those charged with competition law.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Dooley is always very inspiring when he gives his presentations so I thank him for being with us today. I invite Mr. Bob Hughes to address the committee on behalf of Local Ireland.

Mr. Bob Hughes:

I thank the Chair, Deputies, Senators and the Minister for inviting Local Ireland to address the committee on future business model plans and long-term vision for the media. I am executive director of Local Ireland. I am joined by the editor of The Anglo-Celt, Linda O'Reilly, and the CEO of Celtic Media Group, Frank Mulrennan.

Local Ireland represents local paid-for weekly newspapers and their digital content across a range of websites and social media platforms. We echo what Mr. Dooley said. We thank all Ministers, Senators and Deputies who supported our campaign to reduce VAT on newspapers and their e-papers to zero in last month's budget. This is a valuable measure to protect journalism and support the transition of local news publishers to digital business models.

Nonetheless, as everybody else stated, the economic environment remains very challenging. Circulation for local newspapers is still falling. It has fallen more than 50% since 2010, and was down by approximately 7% for the first six months of 2022 compared with the first six months of 2021. Advertising is down an average of 14% for local newspapers on pre-Covid levels. This comes off the back of a long period of contraction following economic recession, the massive migration of advertising to the major tech platforms and the disruption to advertising during Covid, something from which we have not fully recovered. Add to that the burgeoning cost of newsprint - our key source material - which has increased by 150% over the past 18 months, along with spiralling energy prices and the cost-of-living crisis, and committee members can see why continuing supports are so important to us.

The number of employees among local publishers has halved over the past two decades. Since 2008, 17 local newspapers have ceased publication, including one as recently as last month. That is 17 communities that have lost their local newspapers, and that trend will accelerate without further support. Digital is the future business model but the realisation of digital revenue is extremely challenging, particularly for local news publishers who lack the scale of major international and national groups in terms of investment and securing meaningful returns.

Print, despite its challenges, remains the dominant source of income. As a result, support from Government is vital. Local news publishers have not been able to benefit from supports available to local radio through various schemes, most notably the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's sound and vision scheme, which offers grants for public service content. During the pandemic, the scheme was extended to include Covid coverage. We have no issue with local radio receiving these supports but it is only fair that local news publishers should have the same opportunity around content creation.

We welcome the Future of Media Commission’s recognition of local news publishers as public service content providers and the recommendation that the new commission should extend supports, currently available for broadcasters, to print and digital publishers. These supports are intended to go beyond public service content and include schemes around community coverage, training, diversity, accessibility and digital skills. We look forward to working with the new commission on developing these supports and hope that they can be implemented without unnecessary delay.

As we have outlined, the migration of advertising to the major tech platforms has hit our sector severely. The tech platforms enjoy around 85% of all digital advertising spend. They have also benefited from using the content of local news publishers to drive traffic on their platforms and thereby increase their advertising revenue.

The EU copyright directive adopted earlier this year and the EU Digital Markets Act, which came into force at the beginning of this month, enshrine the right of publishers to fair remuneration for the content they create. It will be important for the creation of a fair-dealing environment that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission ensure these measures are implemented effectively in Ireland, as they will be in other countries. As an example, even though the UK is not part of the EU, the Government there is preparing to legislate for the introduction of a digital markets unit within the competence of its competition authority in order to underpin partnership negotiations with the tech platforms.

In other developments, we welcome the publication of the defamation review, along with its recommendations, and look forward to the publication of the legislation over the coming months. It is important to state that we recognise every individual’s right to their good name, but it is clear that the existing legislation has created an imbalance around press freedom and had a chilling effect on journalism

Another way in which we can be supported is through Government and State agency advertising. In general, the Government has been supportive but at times it seems that Departments leave decisions relating to the placing ads to agencies. This means that inclusion of local publishers can be very hit and miss. We feel some campaigns have lacked coherence. All we are looking for in this regard is that local news publishers are included in public information campaigns as a matter of course along with other media and that the sector receives its fair share.

Local news publishers are not only important for journalism and our communities, they are also vital for our democracy in terms of information and accountability. We are not looking for handouts but we are looking for fair treatment in comparison with other media. The future is challenging but with a level playing field and the right supports, local, professional, quality journalism will be protected and preserved and will continue to do the job it has been doing, in some cases, for more than 200 years.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Hughes. There are some very practical suggestions in there and we will come back to them. I call Mr. Colm O'Reilly on behalf of NewsBrands Ireland.

Mr. Colm O'Reilly:

Hopefully it is not a case of the worst is last. Good afternoon, Cathaoirleach, Deputies, Senators and Minister. I am the chairperson of NewsBrands Ireland and the chief operating officer of the Business Post Group. I am joined by my fellow publishers: Sammi Bourke of theIrish Farmers' Journal; Conor Goodman of the Irish Times Group; and Mark Deering, head of corporate affairs at DMG Media. I thank committee members for the kind invitation to speak on this critical issue for our industry and for the support we received in the recent VAT campaign. I cannot state enough how important it was to bring VAT for print and digital newspapers to zero in the recent budget. As we make the digital transformation journey, the €16.5 million that NewsBrands members will gain from that measure has been unbelievably important.

NewsBrands members produce multi-platform public service journalism that is not only central to a free and democratic society, but also feeds the wider news ecosystem of news. Much of the broadcast content on TV and radio originates as a story in the print or online news system. While print sales have declined over the past decade, Irish news publishers are getting a greater command of audience. According to Kantar TGI, in 2022, 82% of Irish adults will read a physical hard-form newspaper or digital newspaper every week in this country and 10.2 million hard-form newspapers will be sold every month. It is ironic at a time when Irish people are looking for more quality news and news publishers are reaching a bigger audience that our economic model is under huge strain.

The traditional revenue sources that newspapers work off, namely circulation and advertising, have been impacted by a couple of mega trends. The advancement in consumer technology has driven a change in how people consume news. People take their news on their phones nowadays and are buying fewer printed newspapers. Also, it is our advertising. The big tech platforms that started out in social media and as search engines are now the dominant players in global advertising.

As a result, our members have to innovate or they will perish. As circulation continues to decline, publishers have invested heavily. Over the past six years, Irish publishers have invested over €20 million in capital expenditure. More than €9 million has gone into digital transformation and digital platforms. Driven by changes in consumer behaviour, publishers are already distributing news content in non-traditional formats and by new distribution channels. Members will probably be familiar with things like podcasts, video clips, newsletters, infographics, data and e-marketplaces.

Our industry knows how to innovate and will stand up and be counted but our editorial independence is critical and remains key to what we do. Within this journey of transformation to digital, people are core to what we talk about. Skills and capabilities of journalists are things we spend significant amounts of money on as we upskill and train our staff to be able to produce content in a multimedia world.

In the very near future, publishers will have to start focusing on different types of formats, such as short and long video creation that could be streamed or, indeed, distributed via TV stations.

Gamification has become an incredibly important part of the digital ecosystem. The New York Times crossword is an online interactive subscription model that has more subscribers in its own right than The New York Times news site and I will not even start on the cooking. In the longer term, publishers will also need to invest in Web 3.0, the multiverse and, indeed, interactive artificial intelligence, AI, and 3D modelling.

Generating revenue from these new business models is the single biggest challenge. The ecosystem is very important and we continue to play our role but we only have to look across the water to see the impact. A recent study by the University of Cambridge found UK news content to be worth approximately £1 billion to the two main platforms, that is, Google and Meta. Despite the value news publishers' content brings to them, the platforms share little, if any, of that revenue with us. Even when they share the revenue and licence our content, the economic and commercial relationship is skewed in their favour. This inequality persists, notwithstanding the transposition of the EU copyright directive. While this legislation provides publishers with the legal right in licensing their content, it does not, unlike in other EU member states, provide a mechanism to compel the platforms to negotiate fairly. We welcome the Future of Media Commission recommendation that the EU copyright directive be assessed within 12 months of transposition. However, we note that as a result of the delay of the Future of Media Commission being implemented, it will be some time before we see this happening.

Defamation gives rise to one of the significant costs we face in our industry. My colleagues in Local Ireland already referred to the rise in the cost of newsprint and the energy crisis which is making print a very difficult economic formula right now. However, defamation is another significant problem for us. Considerable sums of money are put into protecting our newspapers against some of the most draconian defamation laws anywhere in the modern world. The cost of defamation runs to millions annually of which 60% goes on legal costs alone. Many of these cases do not even get to court. It becomes a simple case of a long, drawn-out settlement which takes up management time and benefits very few people. We welcome the long-delayed publication of the report of the review of the Defamation Act 2009 and we cannot overstate the urgency of its implementation to create more fair and balanced defamation legislation.

The challenges impeding ongoing publisher investment in future business models can be addressed effectively through policy and legislative change which, in turn, will help quality journalism thrive in the digital age.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. O'Reilly for that insight. We will move to questions from members. I remind colleagues they have seven minutes. If witnesses who have not spoken feel they have something to add in response to the questions, they should raise their hands. We will give them time and space to reply if we can.

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses to the splendid surroundings of the Seanad. We are not used to being in such a fine location. We usually slum it over in the Lower House. I am glad to be welcomed here as a guest. I thank the witnesses for being here. I welcome my local Radio Kerry anchor, Jerry O'Sullivan, in particular. I have been waiting for years for the opportunity to give him a good grilling. The shoe is usually on the other foot. I hope Mr. O'Sullivan has taken note of where the exits are. I will ask questions and leave it to whomever among the witnesses wishes to answer them.

I welcome the VAT reduction. It is very important. That reduction is merited. We can see more of this type of reduction in other areas in circumstances where it is merited.

Has covering sport become more challenging? I am thinking of competition from the big, multinational players in particular in this regard. What impact is that having on the industry? Is there scope or potential, in the context of the public interest element of State funding in the future, for assistance to be provided when it comes to coverage of sport?

On advertising, both broadcast and print, what has been the impact online regarding the displacement of revenue and reach? How has that affected the various sectors? It is probably a niche area, but what about political advertising in the context of broadcast versus print and online? There is a difference. Is it time for changes? There is limited scope with regard to broadcast. I could put an ad in TheKerryman tomorrow morning, but I cannot advertise my clinics on Radio Kerry. Is there scope to do something in that area? We do not want to turn into the United States, but there may be an opportunity there for everybody.

On the threat of litigation, are we entering an era where it has become the norm, in political culture in particular but also in other elements of the witnesses' work, for litigation to be the first form of defence rather than traditional public discourse? How crippling is that? Does the Oireachtas need to act further? What would the witnesses want to see done with the defamation laws in order to level the playing field? This aspect has certainly received considerable attention of late in the political context. It is an area of concern. Outside of the threat of litigation, to what extent does organised crime and intimidation impact on the witnesses' work? It is one thing to have legal threats, but having illegal threats is a whole different ball game.

Mr. John Purcell:

Some of those issues have a particular impact on local and national radio. With regard to sport, there is a national and local element. It is an issue of sustainability and being able to afford the coverage. Perhaps Jerry O'Sullivan from Kerry could talk about that. Simon Myciunka could talk about the displacement of online media and I will happy take political advertising. We understand the misgivings about it. We do not want an American-type scene, but the regulation of broadcast is too strict and that needs to be addressed.

Mr. Jerry O'Sullivan:

If it can be said for sport, it can be said for news. Independent and local-radio newsrooms need resources. The key resource is human beings and people who have experience, that is, seasoned journalists able to carry out the work and do the job. They also need the technical resources including the equipment and the ability to go digital to improve the service they provide. Covering local sports events with fixtures, analysis, live commentary and social media takes time, money and effort. IBI members are always trying to develop and improve on what they do year on year. The staff are needed to do so. Mr. Purcell and others have been saying it is a challenging economic model.

Getting the support to continue to invest in newsrooms is key, as well as having sport staff. Much sport on local radio would be done via smaller numbers of full-time journalists but they have a network of part-time journalists and contributors who cover absolutely everything. It is key to the overall product that radio provides in the country and a key identifier for us with our listeners. It is one of the gateways through which we get listeners. They wish to hear sports coverage and events through local voices with local analysis. On Radio Kerry, we do a Monday-night programme called "Terrace Talk". We are one of the few stations to have a devoted mid-week sports show. It is very popular and important but it takes time and money. To underline the importance of it, Seánie O'Shea's point to beat the Dubs was amazing, but it was made ten times more amazing by having Tim Moynihan and Ambrose O'Donovan commentate on it. Being there, having the equipment and experience and being able to analyse and deliver it for the people of Kerry is absolutely vital and a key part of what local radio does.

Mr. S?amus Dooley:

There is a local democracy scheme and funding under the commission. Sport is sufficiently important in Irish society that funding could be available for it. Mr. Hughes has mentioned the loss of a number of titles and the loss of diversity. That has affected sports coverage in a number of areas. There is also the heresy in some areas where titles have been acquired by one owner and have, therefore, merged resources, sometimes making business decisions that do not make editorial sense. There is a notion of an Offaly man having a report in a Tipperary newspaper and giving a Tipperary perspective. One reporter covering Offaly and Tipperary - I am thinking of a particular situation - might make business sense but having a local perspective and a local editor making local editorial decisions is important. I know that from my background as a newspaper editor. Sometimes the idea of merging coverage and having common reports may appear to make sense but considerations of diversity and plurality do not apply only to issues such as politics. Sometimes those considerations are even more important for sport. There is no reason why sport should not be looked upon as a suitable area for funding in the same way politics is. I would particularly like to see that in the context of the promotion of women. More and more women are interested in covering sport and there is potential in that regard.

The Deputy also asked about threats to journalism. There have been instances of physical threats to journalists and we have had a number of instances where threats have been issued to, in particular but not exclusively, photographers. There have been incidents outside the courts and outside Parliament when photographers have been physically assaulted and intimated. In addition, there is the torture - and I use that word advisedly - on social media which the tech giants have ignored. Much of that is gender based and extremely misogynistic. There is not a newsroom in the country that could not give the committee an example of anonymous trolls attacking female journalists, in particular. That is a real concern. Quite frankly, the tech giants have not been responsible in dealing with that issue.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Dooley. In the time we have left to answer Deputy Griffin's questions, Mr. Byrne, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Mulrennan and Mr. O'Reilly have offered. We are way over time but I want to let everyone in because this is incredibly important. I ask our witnesses to be as brief as possible is saying their pieces.

Mr. Jack Byrne:

I will be brief. I will respond to two of the questions asked. We in community radio, the third pillar of media, realise that the national broadcaster can cover sport in a certain way and local radio can cover a wider geographical area than we can. There was an advertisement for a beer years ago that claimed its beer could reach parts that other beers cannot reach. Community radio can reach parts of the community that even local radio cannot. We can cover minority sports quite well in a small locality. I recognise that the spectrum of sports coverage includes national and local coverage but community coverage of sport is also important and should be recognised.

The Deputy also asked about online media. Community radio and media are looking at developing multimedia hubs or platforms to engage with young people who are moving away from FM radio. We need to engage with them again and that is why we are interested in developing community media hubs. Was that brief enough for the Chairman?

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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That was perfect. Well done. If everyone follows the precedent, we will be flying. I call Mr. Hughes.

Mr. Bob Hughes:

I will be incredibly quick because I am going to defer to Mr. Mulrennan.

Mr. Frank Mulrennan:

Mr. Dooley and I were both at a session like this in the Oireachtas in 2017. At that time, I made the remark that the business model in journalism is broken. That is the crux of the matter. When one discusses investment in sport, courts coverage or the community, it all comes down to resources. We have migrated from being a newspaper. If Senator Cassells were here, he would reference the Meath Chronicle, which dates back to 1897. Migration takes money. Not alone are our journalists producing copy for our newspapers but they are investing in videography and in our websites. This month, we have touched 3 million page views. We have just short of 200,000 Facebook and Twitter followers. Our journalists are seriously innovative but the cost of producing that content is difficult when one considers that our main revenue comes from advertising. It is 90% of our business. The key aspect there is that much of the migration of advertising is to Facebook and Google. It is an unequal battle. I hear what our colleagues in local radio, in particular, have said. I am very grateful for the reduced VAT rate but it is the first time that we in publishing have felt support coming through from the Government. It is a very welcome measure but we need so much more. As Mr. Dooley said, we are finding it very hard to get young people to come into journalism. We are finding it very hard to upskill them. It will be a loss to Ireland if we do not deliver on that.

Mr. Colm O'Reilly:

I am going to ask my colleague, Mr. Deering, to answer the point on defamation for the Deputy.

Mr. Mark Deering:

I will address the digital advertising point that the Deputy raised. To add to Mr. Mulrennan's point, the figures we have available show the total advertising market in Ireland is worth roughly €1.2 billion and the digital advertising market comprises two thirds of it. Some 62% of that digital advertising revenue goes to the tech behemoths and only 4% to 5% goes to the indigenous Irish news publishers. I hope that clarifies the situation.

We are delighted that the Future of Media Commission, endorsed by the Government, has recommended that the overall digital advertising market in Ireland will be reviewed, together with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, and the Data Protection Commission, DPC. As news publishers, we welcome that.

The defamation point has already been addressed but in respect of specifics, we are pleased that the Government has accepted the recommendation that juries should be abolished in such cases. That is a welcome development for us as news publishers. It may lead to more consistency in judgments and predictability in respect of the awards that are made as a result of verdicts.

Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach, Senator Mark Daly, and the Chairman for organising this meeting. It is an historic day and it is nice to be here.

I thank our guests for what they do. They provide diversity and plurality in our society, which is important to our democracy. It is very often understated. They contribute to the proper functioning of democracy in our society, provide a platform for self-expression, inform citizens and engender public debate. Those are important things.

I will start by asking a question of Dr. Wheatley. She raised serious issues regarding paywalls and the creation of a two-tier news landscape where premium information will be given to the 16% of audiences who are willing to buy it while the rest will receive substandard and possibly incorrect news. To what degree does she see that happening in Ireland? What are the pitfalls we should be looking out for?

The following point was also mentioned by the NUJ. How important is the disclosure of website ownership and the likes of codes of conduct to organisers that receive grants and funding from the State? Have our guests any comment on the transparency between editorial structures and procedures and how they are managed?

Maybe the NUJ can address that. Mr. Dooley referred to the concentration on ownership being an issue as well, and this was highlighted in the opening statement. Can he expand on this in the Irish context?

Representatives of the IBI stated that future funding schemes should be practical and user-friendly. Can they expand on that, tell us why it is important and give some practical examples?

That is basically it. I have one last question to ask all the stakeholders. Can they comment on the Future of Media Commission's recommendations on developing an all-Ireland media economy?

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Is any of our stakeholders willing to respond?

Ms Gabrielle Cummins:

I thank Deputy Mythen. One of the key elements he mentioned is about paywalls. It is important to highlight that radio and access to news is obviously free. It is really important we protect that. That is the reason we are reiterating the importance of funding local and regional radio, especially the types of stations such as ours. I run Beat 102 103, which targets 15- to 34-year-olds. There is a fleet of stations all over the country targeting this age bracket. We are all talking about the importance of protecting truth and making sure people have access to factual information. We have been doing that for 20 years, as have all the youth stations all over the country. Seven out of ten 15- to 34-year-olds listen to one of our stations. It is vital that this access to free factual information is protected. That is why we reiterate the need for the levy to be abolished and for our work to be supported. Many people have mentioned today how difficult it is for us to fund journalists. That is getting more and more difficult. When I started out with Beat, I was news editor and it was about getting a story on air and online. Now all our of journalists are multi-platform providers and we have much more to do to get that factual information out to as many people as possible. As the biggest radio station in Ireland, we have 183,000 followers on TikTok but it is really important we get the right information to that key audience who will be listening and trying to find the correct information in the future. Therefore, we need to be protected.

Mr. Conor Goodman:

I want to go back to the Deputy's question on the two-tier point. I will explain a little about business and journalism model of The Irish Timesas a way of addressing that. The Irish Timeswas an early adopter of technology and a pioneer in opening its website in 1994. The other pioneering thing it did was in 2016 when it brought in what is called a metered model. I am sure most of you are familiar with it. It allows you to read a certain amount for free. Every article or almost every article on the website is freely available and then a meter is implemented. When you have read three or four articles per week, you are asked to pay for subsequent articles. This approach enables access to all while also creating an economy and a model that sustains the journalism. In addition, we offer free access to third level students, who can read as much as they want right across the platform. As part of our commitment to education, which goes back a long way, we are also looking at rolling out free access to schools. That requires a little thought - there is a technology and business question around it - but it is something we would like to do as well. It is possible, therefore, to have a digital paid model while also giving people access. That digital model is essential to The Irish Times. It is essential that online journalism is paid for because that allows us to invest. Things like the zero VAT rate, which The Irish Timesjoins others in welcoming, are also important.

What does the public get for what they are paying as digital subscribers and from the reduction in VAT? As an example, they get investment in our network of overseas corespondents. We have just opened, or reopened, a Beijing bureau and we are advertising for a new London editor. Our network of correspondents across Europe is probably the largest of any Irish media outlet. The locations of our correspondents in Brussels, Berlin and Washington, where Irish interests need to be represented, are very important. It is also important to bring stories from those parts of the world to an Irish readership. At this time, it is particularly important to mention our correspondent Daniel McLaughlin in Ukraine, who has been there for many years reporting on one of the nerve centres of the world.

As we go forward, looking at future business models, our international readership is growing in importance; including among the Irish diaspora. That is something that would not have been possible when we had only a printed newspaper which you might be lucky to get in London, or you would have to get through the post a month late in Australia. Now we have a connection to a network of Irish readers all over the world. You can get the same information on your phone at the same time in Dublin, Dubai, Tierra del Fuego or wherever you happen to be. That kind of diasporic journalism is something that has only been enabled by the digital medium. Obviously, there is a huge potential in that medium that was never possible in print. In addition, as others have mentioned, the reach that can be achieved through the digital medium goes far beyond that of the printed paper.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I will take Dr. Wheatley, Mr. McManamy, Ms O’Reilly and Mr. Purcell, in that order. If anybody else wants to come in, they can do so, although we might be short on time.

Dr. Dawn Wheatley:

I will keep it brief. I will respond to the two questions the Deputy raised and follow up on what Mr. Goodman said regarding The Irish Times. It is primarily the print titles that are implementing the paywalls and we understand the reasons for that. I echo what I said earlier about the importance of radio because it is accessible, which is what makes it distinctive in this context. I would have concerns with the print titles around paywall decisions. I see my role here today as providing the audience perspective. I totally understand the industry's logic behind these decisions. In response to something Mr. Goodman said, I would say that I have noticed - I could be wrong - an increasing number of paywall-only or subscriber-only articles appearing. The point is that many of them are the more in-depth, more analytical, or explainer-type articles that set out to clarify a complicated issue but are now for access by subscribers only. Coming from an ideological perspective on the audience side, that could lead to increasing fragmentation. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we still have lots of high-quality accessible information. As Mr. Goodman has said, much of that is still available from The Irish Timeswith the metered system but we need to be mindful of those trends.

I will make a second point on transparency. It is something I want to raise today because it is very manageable. At a time when levels of trust are falling or are at risk, we are lucky here that we have relatively high levels of trust compared with many countries, the UK in particular, but we should not wait until it dips to try to regain it. Instead, news organisations should try to be open and upfront about some of the indicators I have mentioned. It would not be laborious to have sections on websites laying out clear corrections and policies that lay out the various things I have listed. The link I included in my written submission is US based but it has examples of 20 or 30 US news organisations and you can click on each of these indicators. It will bring you, for example, to TheNew York Timespolicy on how they use anonymous sources and the fact that it has to go through a process. It is a very tangible and accessible thing, but for news producers it can be a shift towards revealing state secrets of sorts. When trust is at risk, being that open could be really helpful in the long term.

Mr. Ronan McManamy:

I will respond to what Deputy Mythen said about the funding of the radio sector. It is thrown back at us that we have access to Sound and Vision funding. Some 7% of the television licence goes into a fund we can apply for, as can television, RTÉ and independent producers. By way of example, €6.4 million was allocated in the round that came out last March and local radio stations got €150,000, or 2%.

Part of the reason for that is we did not apply for it because the admin involved in getting a small amount of €2,000 or €3,000 is not worth it. Most of the television companies come in and take funds out of that and the allocation is €200,000, €300,000 or €400,000. The scheme does not work for us.

Second, in terms of the scheme, we work in a live environment, so we will deal with what is topical and what is happening here and now. That scheme is designed for television stations where they plan in the spring what they will do in the autumn. Therefore, again, it does not work for us.

A key issue as well is we cannot apply for anything to do with current programming. There is an additionality clause there. Because we developed significant public service elements across the years, that is now being thrown back in our face. We cannot get things for that, but we can get funding for additions. It as if there is a hole in your house and you are getting grants for new carpets and curtains.

Ms Linda O'Reilly:

I am the editor of the Anglo-Celt news publisher in Cavan. I listened to the points about paywalls, micropayments and metering. What works for one media outlet might not necessarily work for another. However, when one is dealing with regional news publishers, such as the Anglo-Celt in Cavan, we have looked at paywalls and membership models. We have done quite a bit of research on them in the past. We are mindful that we are the only newspaper and news publisher now across multiple platforms in County Cavan. There is that importance of access to news and information for people that they can trust that is collated by trained and experienced journalists – information that they can rely on. We certainly would not want to put any unnecessary expense or burden on people to have to pay to access that. However, somebody has to pay for this journalism.

We have a news team of six on the ground in County Cavan, which is more than any other local media outlet. We do not dip in and out of courts or council meetings; we go to them and cover them all. We have a journalist who could be there for the day and needs a day to write that up. That is a massive commitment and a major human and financial resource into that public service journalism. It is very important and we take our role very seriously in the wider democracy and the wider ecosystem of news. If we are not there at that court case, in that council meeting or at that educational training board meeting to hear a school merger being proposed potentially behind closed doors, somebody is not there to report that back to the public in a fair and balanced manner.

It is very important that we are there and on the ground. We just need help. If some of the Future of Media Commission recommendations can be implemented around, say, training funds for public service journalism for subsidised internships and stuff like that, it would really help us to keep our journalistic resources intact as we make the transition. Our current digital strategy is to be digital first. We eventually will need to be digital only. However, we need to keep our journalistic resources intact to make that transition.

Our challenge has always been revenue, not reach or relevance. To answer the Deputy’s earlier point, we have more people accessing news and information via the Anglo-Celt now through our paper, our online edition and our social media channels. I looked at the web figures last night. The Anglo-Celtin Cavan alone has already gone over the 4 million page views so far this year and 1.3 million unique users to the end of October. It has already surpassed last year’s total by more than 10%, and that was a record year in itself. People are coming to us and they trust us. What we do is very important to the communities that we serve. We have done that since 1846 in Cavan. We need the Government’s support now. We are at a tipping point and we do not want to have to let journalists go. It is very important.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I can certainly attest to the fact that the Anglo-Celt is everywhere, in every corner. That is a geographical mammoth task in the first place. Fair play to Ms O’Reilly and her journalists. They do a super job.

I ask Mr. Purcell to be very brief because we spent much time on Deputy Mythen’s good questions. I have many other colleagues and only one hour left and I want to give everybody a chance.

Mr. John Purcell:

Very briefly, I refer to Dr. Wheatley mentioning about regulations or outlines of policies on covert recording or reporting and so on. Our members operate under the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, codes in relation to news, current affairs, fairness, balance, impartiality etc. so a lot of that stuff exists already for us as a regulated sector. We feel we already carry a huge burden of regulation, codes, compliance and so on. The gap is in relation to viability. The choice ultimately will be the content or leaving the obligations go and letting us go. That is the conundrum.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Dooley want a short word on this?

Mr. S?amus Dooley:

The question was asked about concentration of ownership. However, I suspect some other members may want to ask that as well and I can address it then.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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We will move on then, if that is okay. I thank everyone for their co-operation. I call Senator Malcolm Byrne, who has seven minutes. I do not know how well that will go, but we will give it a shot.

Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail)
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I thank our witnesses and guests. I also thank Senator Daly, not just for welcoming us here, but for his eloquent introduction. Given that there are quite a number of distinguished members of the fourth estate here, when the Senator stated that members of the Guinness and Jameson family provided the backbone for the start of the State, please be aware that they do not provide the libation for debates that go on for discussion here.

This is a critical discussion because it is not just around the future of the media. It is why we, as a committee, have spent so much time on this. This is very much around the future of democracy and the values that we all hold dear and very much to the point on reporting on those things that happen at a local level. However, much as we may disagree on different issues, there is a very important role about having a free media within any society. We sometimes perhaps do not appreciate how valuable that is. One thinks about the challenges facing journalists in other countries, and I am thinking about, for example, places such as Egypt, Belarus, Cuba and Myanmar, and particularly at the moment in China and Hong Kong. This is a challenge to the press to continue to highlight in even greater detail the threats to those journalists and democracy. We should realise the importance of what we have.

I wish to make a few observations that will lead to some questions. Mr. Purcell and others acknowledge the fact that the Government has made a number of significant efforts. There is an understanding now on the part of Government. There is the local media fund, the reduction in VAT and the investment in TG4, which will be significant. Keep coming with the ideas. I will not quite say "pushing an open door", but certainly from the perspective of our committee and the Government, there are many positives there.

There is a challenge, which someone referred to, in the diversity in media. I make the point that only one of the eight presentations was made by a woman. By the way, I am not pointing the finger at the media, because if one looks on the political side here, it is not exactly the most diverse either. However, it is a challenge that we need to address to ensure democratic values get addressed.

It is great to see so many representatives of local and national broadcast and print media. However, this is a bit like Hamletbeing staged without the prince. We do not have the social media giants and so on that are now very significant players in this space. I think the move will be to digital. What is important with regard to digital radio as well is around how we can continue to ensure that Irish voices get heard in that global space.

I will come to my question on funding, but to Dr. Wheatley’s point, I am that minority. I have local and national newspaper subscriptions, including to all the ones that are represented here. I have a number to magazines and I pay for stuff behind a paywall. I will stop at the idea of paying €8 a month for a blue tick. I will definitely not go down that road. However, it comes to my first key question, which is around what funding model we will use. As people will be aware, the Government accepted all of the recommendations of the Future of Media Commission, bar the one about the RTÉ funding model. What will we look at doing? If we do not go for the paywall model, how will we ensure it? The concern we hear is whether direct funding from the Government will in some way compromise the independence of the media, which is vital to democracy.

Is there a funding model on which the entire sector can agree that will also guarantee our independence?

Mr. Purcell referenced the OSMR Bill. This will now establish coimisiún na meán, which will be the most powerful regulator in the State. I do not think people quite realise how strong that is going to be. Some of us are still fighting to have a broadcasting committee as part of that. Given where the legislation is at, and I realise it is not yet finalised, how do the witnesses envisage that operating most effectively? I am not just talking about regulating the sector, and I get Mr. Dooley's point about the training side, but about guaranteeing those underpinning democratic principles in its day-to-day operations.

One of my concerns also speaks to Dr. Wheatley's point about our interaction with media. Sometimes I have a concern that in the, dare I call it, establishment media or traditional media, in order to compete with some of what is happening online, there is an element of dumbing down and there is a bit of clickbait journalism going on. That must be challenged to ensure we continue to have quality. There is also a broader challenge for society, for us as legislators and those in the media around digital and media literacy, so people will be able to understand and challenge. What are the witnesses doing to enhance levels of digital and media literacy?

My final question relates to the challenge of social media. Mr. Dooley spoke about the online abuse of journalists and intimidation, which we all condemn. We get it in politics as well, as the witnesses will be aware. It is important that we try to encourage good people into politics. There is a perception among many of us that elements of the media do not give us a fair deal. I am not arguing that we should get off lightly but the profession of politics needs the media to start encouraging good people to become involved and to defend the profession of politics. This is not about decisions we make and taking flak and deserved criticism but we need to start talking about upholding democratic values, the rule of law and those things that we value but in many ways take for granted.

Mr. John Purcell:

The issue of diversity in media is something of which we are very conscious. There are seven people here on behalf of IBI today, three women, three men and me as chair. I am not saying anything else. I will ask Ms Hanratty from Learning Waves to talk about what we as a sector are doing in relation to diversity and inclusion.

Ms Teresa Hanratty:

I will come back to what the Senator said about media literacy and what the sector is doing in that space as well. Regarding equality and diversity, Learning Waves is the training body for the independent radio sector. The sector had the foresight to set up its own training body 18 years ago, funded by the sector and part-funded by Skillnet Ireland. The caveat to that is that it is not continual funding and we are subject to applications year on year. In 2021, we commissioned a study with the Irish Centre for Diversity which looked at the area of inclusive leadership across the sector. A number of recommendations came from that, including setting up a steering group for equality and diversity across the industry and putting in place training programmes for equality and diversity leads across the sector, which we have done. We have established that steering group and the terms of reference have been agreed. We have just launched an inclusive equality and diversity survey across the whole sector, looking at getting the perspectives of the employees around equality and diversity in the sector, along with that looking at putting supports in place to help the industry work with minority groups. Mr. Byrne mentioned this from the community sector perspective but we are also looking at getting more diverse voices on air, which can sometimes be a difficulty for the sector, through no fault of its own. We are looking at putting in place structures and programs to encourage more diversity on air as well as employment across the sector.

Regarding digital and media literacy, Learning Waves represents the sector on the Media Literacy Ireland steering group, which is an initiative set up by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland that looks at creating awareness of media, how the media is created and how it does what it does on a daily basis. To that end, we have implemented a number of programs, one of which is a transition year media week where we work with transition year students across the country. Radio stations engage with us to provide a training programme for transition year students who come into the radio stations. They are exposed to what happens on a day-to-day basis within the radio station but the unique part of that is that they get the opportunity to produce content that is then broadcast on that radio station during that week. It really gives them an insight into what radio is doing, how it is produced but also gives them the opportunity to have their voices heard on radio and to tell stories that matter to them. These 15 and 16-year-olds coming into a radio station and being given that opportunity to have their voices heard on air is really important. We get a lot of interest in that programme.

The final programme I want to mention is the journalism graduate programme, which the industry had the foresight to establish back in 2019, in order to attract new talent and new journalists into the industry. We partnered with Skillnet Ireland, the industry and the BAI to bring in the journalism graduate programme, which is a placement for five months for journalism graduates. Some have come from DCU over the years and have been successful in securing full-time work following the five-month placement. Funding was again secured this year for ten graduates to work across ten different radio stations. Like all the programs we have mentioned, it is subject to funding and will only continue as the industry sees fit in terms of being able to secure that funding amid the drop in commercial revenue. That is just an overview of what the industry is doing, and wants to continue doing, in those areas of equality and diversity and digital and media literacy.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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There are people offering who have not spoken yet. I call Mr. Myciunka.

Mr. Simon Myciunka:

Sport was mentioned earlier. I would just like to shine a light on a national brand, Off the Ball, which is an example of investment that Bauer Media has made into digital literacy. We impact a broadcast programme into a distributed media business, which means a lot of social broadcasts and lots of digital broadcasts and events. That is a huge investment in tech and infrastructure but, most important, in skills as well. The problem is that the distribution is on tech platforms that offer disproportionate levels of revenue or limited or no access to monetising that content. That has proven to be a bedrock for how we operate on some of our other brands such as Newstalk, Today FM, 98 FM and Spin. They all have a similar investment in skills and talent in order to make sure we have a multi-platform array of content creators. It is definitely something we are doing but it is very difficult to get the monetisation of that content that we had before. In answer to an earlier question, broadcast revenues have shrunk by 33% over the last 15 years. That shows the stark environment in which radio operators are currently operating.

Ms Fionnuala Rabbitt:

I am CEO of Highland Radio, a local radio station in Donegal. I wanted to address the issue of gender balance, which was mentioned. Ms Cummins and I are two of four women who currently run independent radio stations in Ireland. We are more than aware that there have been issues in the past, particularly in relation to females, and we are addressing them. We are addressing them through Learning Waves but people do not realise the number of women who are working behind the scenes. There is always a concern because people say they cannot hear women on air and that means those voices are not being heard. They are a part of the community and people are not hearing their views and their thoughts. In stations such as mine, 60% of the behind-the-scenes staff, which includes journalists, programme controllers and producers, are women. These are the ways in which women are contributing. Ms Hanratty will back this up with regard to the graduate programme. It is full of women who want to become journalists, who want to move through broadcasting and who have an interest in news and journalism but it is vital that we get the funding. That is where we have the most difficulty at the moment. There is only so much the industry can support so it is vital that we get the funding from the Government, through the BAI and Skillnet Ireland, in order to continue that.

The other side is why we cannot get more journalists, more women and more people from different ethnic backgrounds? As NUJ mentioned, it is the cost. We are not in a position to offer ginormous wages. That is just a fact of life. Radio stations have struggled in the past few years when we were all on a knife edge with everything. Now we are slowly coming back but it is a very slow process. There are external economic factors we cannot control in our own stations. I am up in Donegal. We went from suffering the impact of Brexit and the fear around it as a Border county into Covid and now we are back to Brexit again and wondering whether there will be a recession. These are all things that are impacting the station. This is why we feel the funding we are looking for is very fair. Consider the amount of public service broadcasting. Radio, in particular, but also our colleagues in other media have proof after Covid of the amount of work we have put in that is vital to the communities we serve. We are looking for funding for our public-service content. The other side is a reduction of the levy. We are trying to do things in our stations to continue to grow and to be viable and to continue to represent the areas where we work so that we can bring in more equality and diversity and have more journalists and give them better paying jobs. All this is helped by the reduction in the levy and through any government assistance. The concern is if money is coming from the Government, how do we say we are not on one side or the other? The Senator answered his own question when he spoke of journalists and the fact that the media should make being in politics a more attractive proposition and that we should help to get good people into politics. We are already doing that, I think. We are holding people to account. We have politicians coming in and out. We talk about the good work that politicians do but we also put their feet to the fire if we feel they are not representing their constituents in the way they should. Government funding will not have a negative impact on the work we do. It will only help us grow and be stronger and represent our communities even better.

Mr. Jerry O'Sullivan:

On Senator Malcolm Byrne's point about politics, Radio Kerry did several pieces around the last local elections and the lack of candidates putting themselves forward and the difficulties many of the parties had finding candidates. One reason was the abuse on social media and the image. Part of being a journalist with a well-resourced newsroom is having the time to develop stories. We have made the point several times that you get criticism for that because in certain corners of social media, all journalists are seen as biased and all politicians are seen as corrupt - Ireland is a kip, a banana republic. Part of the job is having the time to work through stories and to tell stories in an unbiased way and to respond to that thinking. We ask tough questions and point out when things are wrong but getting away from clickbait and taking the road of saying that actually, no, hold on, Ireland is not a kip, it is not a banana republic, there are good things happening and it is very important we have good quality, talented people getting into politics. That work is being done and we are pointing out that if we do not have enough politicians coming forward we could be in trouble.

Mr. Robbie Kitt:

I want to talk about some of the ways organisations such as ours can offer media literacy. Dublin Digital Radio's programming includes "Arts Alive", which is a monthly show broadcast from Galway for people with learning disabilities, "Young DDR" is a show which was made exclusively by primary school students and "Atomic" is a music show which platforms teenagers who make music. "Quare in the Archive" is a show which documents the history of queer cultures in Ireland. I speak about that just to highlight the kind of thing an organisation like ours, a volunteer internet broadcaster, can offer. I would like to mention some of the ways we try to expand our ideas of diversity because those tenets are central to our organisation. We do it largely through events. Thinking of events held by other broadcasters, I remember Lark in the Park which was hosted by RTÉ. It was before my time. I do not know if anyone here remembers it. It was public gigs held in public parts run by RTÉ Radio 2. Those types of events are really important to us. It goes back to Dr. Wheatley's point about transparency - I commend her work - on resources and media organisations but also the operations of media organisations. We would encourage the talk about community media hubs. That would show how media organisations operate in a transparent way. Many local and larger media organisations are entrenched in communities but if they are physically entrenched too it gives a much broader reach to that community involvement. DDR operates from an art studio space in Dublin city and every month during the summer we ran open-air studios where we broadcast outside the complex for the day. It was very visually transparent and a visual version of our broadcasting activities which was very accessible. Anyone walking by on the street could see what was going on. There are a lot of opportunities in the idea of community media hubs to make media organisations more transparent.

Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I welcome everyone here. I have engaged with some of them over the past 12 months while myself and my party colleagues, Deputies Cannon and Bruton and Senator Buttimer, put together our submission to the commission on behalf of Fine Gael.

The VAT reduction is very welcome and was supported by all parties and none. I would support the reduction, if not the abolition, of the levy. The media commission is funded for €7.5 million for 2023 so there is funding there. The social media companies should be also paying into the fund. I fully support a change in that.

The commission's comprehensive report made 49 recommendations which are adopted by the Government and one which is out for consultation. What did the commission miss? Was there a glaring omission in its recommendations? What would be the priorities?

We were talking about staffing and courses. I met with Shannonside. Sometimes there is a difficulty recruiting people into journalism and radio. Are there sufficient courses at third level to train people?

Mr. Dooley mentioned the NUJ training and development unit set up. Will he expand on that?

What percentage of expenditure goes on defamation, court cases and legal costs annually to defend cases like that?

On sport, I look forward to the day when Shannonside commentates on Longford winning the All Ireland in Croke Park. Please God, that day will come. If one is not at a local game, listening to local commentators on our local radio station makes one feel like one is at the game, as it should be. I take this opportunity to wish Longford Slashers ladies, who are playing the All Ireland semi-final on Sunday, every success and hope they will be in an all-Ireland football final in Croke Park in the next couple of weeks.

Deputy Griffin mentioned sport being classified as a public interest because it is the same as our courts, council meetings, etc. Will our visitors comment on those points?

Mr. Ian McGuinness:

With regard to recruitment, I am the Irish organiser with the National Union of Journalists. I would link diversity, low pay, and the abuse of journalists in the context of problems with recruitment. We held a students' seminar last Thursday with about 60 people. The majority of the students were women and there were quite a number of ethnic minorities. It was very positive to see the new Irish and so many women there. Journalism is a fantastic profession - Mr. Séamus Dooley and I are both ex-journalists - but quite often the problem with the recruitment of young people is that when a person goes into the profession, he or she is all starry eyed. In a single day a journalist can be speaking to a Deputy and then covering a Christmas tree lighting in the afternoon or covering a car crash. There is diversity in journalistic stories and this can inspire people to work in the area. The problem we have with regard to recruitment is the swathes of low pay in massive sectors of the industry. I speak as someone who comes from a working-class background. When I did my journalism degree at Dublin City University 25 years ago I was one of a handful of working-class journalists. This is one of the elements of diversity that we often forget about: the huge swathe of working-class people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who are excluded from what is perceived to be a middle-class profession because they cannot afford it. They literally could not afford the rent and they would have to stay at home with their mother and father. They cannot afford to go into a profession where they would be lowly paid. I would link the low recruitment of people to the abuse that Mr. Dooley mentioned, particularly for women, as well as racist and homophobic abuse, online. It is hard enough to be a journalist when staffing numbers are going down and when the expansion of social media and the use of social media has spiralled workloads out of control. It is hard enough to deal with that workload and stress as a new and younger journalist, but when a person also must take sexist, homophobic and racist abuse from cowards online, which happens all of the time, or whenever a journalist is threatened when he or she goes to court, we see how young journalists could very easily become disillusioned by that. We try as much as possible to provide supports and not just industrial relations: we provide supports for journalists who are threatened.

Journalism is in crisis and by this I mean journalists. We did a survey, which was by no means a scientific survey: it is a snapshot in time, and 360 journalists took part. The results showed that in the past decade 80% of them had thought of leaving journalism or are considering doing so now, with 90% knowing a journalist who had left journalism or were considering doing so now. It is not just about recruiting journalists, it is about protecting especially young journalists, ethnic minorities, women, and LGBTQ+ communities. It is also about ensuring there is appropriate pay that allows people such as those from a working-class background, as well as freelancers, who we have not spoken about here yet, to actually make a living out of it. It is about recruiting them and retaining them as well. Those are the problems I would connect to diversity, low pay, abuse and recruitment all in one.

Ms Teresa Hanratty:

I will come back in on the third level courses. Having worked with a number of third level institutes around recruiting into their journalism graduate programmes, some of the feedback we get is that while the courses are really good, it is about bridging that gap between coming out of college and being industry-ready to come into the industry. This is where the challenge is. We had a meeting with Dundalk IT on Monday last around the challenges there they are having in wanting to work with the industry but being restricted in being able to bring in experts from the industry as guest speakers or trainers on the college courses. I am not saying that they should come in and be full-time lecturers, but to be part-time guest lecturers to give students a real insight into what is happening in the radio-audio industry at the moment and how they can become work ready when their time at college is finished. To be fair to the colleges, they are restricted too in what they can do. There is probably a lot more that we can do together with third level institutes coming together, and ourselves as a training body for the radio industry and other industries, to work with them and make sure that the programmes are more practical and that students are more work ready when they do come out from third level courses.

Ms Gabrielle Cummins:

I will come back in on Senator Carrigy's question about third level courses, and I will follow up on what Ms Hanratty said. Our experience is that the graduates coming through are missing out on that practical experience. A lot of radio stations such as Beat FM and WLR have teamed up with South East Technological University in Waterford and with Waterford Chamber of Commerce to be able to provide a ten-week introduction to radio course. We have found that this is very important. A lot of people have done their third level course and then they do this on top of that. We also liaise with the University of Limerick to have interns on placement with us. That practical experience is so important. I am aware that my colleagues at Radio Kerry do a huge amount on the training for providing that practical level of courses. We are trying our best to bridge that gap but it all comes down to funding. We are doing what we can in that area but any additional funding to support news and print is welcome.

Mr. Brian Greene:

I am a graduate of Learning Waves and the wonderful programme of training it has, and I went on to become the manager of Phoenix FM. In community media we go on to use the social benefit fund that currently exists to train hundreds of people every year in a range of training in how to become part of a community radio station and take part and be involved. It goes a very long way. People then become volunteers and stay in media. There was a question about the Future of Media Commission and what it might have missed. I do not believe that it missed anything but there is one recommendation it made that the Government is not taking on, which is around the core funding. In the legislation that is going through at the moment, and future legislation from the European Union directive, they are keeping in the possibility to levy streamers. Perhaps lack of innovation around the television licence being adapted might lead to funding coming from that levy being exercised. The ability to exercise that levy is being left in the legislation. Maybe this is a possibility for future funding to disseminate across newspapers, local radio and community radio, that are in the room today.

Ms Linda O'Reilly:

On the point of getting good staff and senior journalists trained, The Anglo-Celt has lost two senior reporters in the past couple of years, which is unfortunate but I suppose we should be optimistic because we had them for so many years and we generally do not have a high staff turnover. We had a serious problem recruiting senior reporters to replace them. The reason I find is that while there are plenty of fine young graduates coming from places like DCU, and the courses are good, they do not have the practical experience. There has also been a major brain drain from the industry with journalists leaving. Many colleagues and friends of mine who I started out with in college and in work have now gone to work at PR agencies or as Government press secretaries and so on and so forth. They are leaving the industry and we cannot get suitable replacements. Skills like court reporting are becoming non-existent. I had to take a retired court reporter out of retirement this week to give us a bit of a dig out because there were sittings of the Circuit Court and the District Court. It also must be recognised that existing editors and journalists put in an incredible amount of time into training these young graduates in bringing them to courts, and there is a significant human resource investment required in that. An editor must send two people down to the court. One or two times will not cut it, they would need to be going down there for months with another reporter shadowing them. Then we must still write up these court cases. There is significant investment ongoing by regional news publishers in training these journalists.

Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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On that, should it be the case that with the college degree and work experience they could link in with the various media groups throughout the college period and get that practical work experience while in college, rather than coming out more raw by not having done that? Is that something that could be done?

Ms Linda O'Reilly:

There have been informal links between many regional newspapers and radio stations with existing colleges, and we do get some graduates through. I guess that some of the younger people are attracted by the bright lights of Dublin and by cities and by television broadcasting, and it can be difficult to get good graduates sometimes. Perhaps we could look at having some more formal structure in place to do that. It would really help if we had those subsidised apprenticeships for multimedia journalists so they could help us. We need upskilling as well in the area of multimedia journalism. We have invested in mobile journalism training. The problem is that we do not get enough time to implement it. Such support would be terrific because we could in turn help to train them in the more practical elements of things. We need some sort of a subsidised internship scheme that links in with education providers such as DCU.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Many hands are up. We will keep going and I promise we will get everybody in. I invite Senator Warfield to speak.

Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Chair and all of the witnesses. I wanted the committee to invite Dublin Digital Radio alongside CRAOL, to give a representation of what the media landscape looks like in Ireland between those regulated by the BAI and Dublin Digital Radio. I congratulate Dublin Digital Radio on the award from Mixcloud.

With regard to community media generally, whether or not it is under the BAI umbrella, the model of being a volunteer run and democratically run is important. There is also the issue of journalism graduates. Giving people experience in media, including working class people, cannot be underappreciated. There is a huge amount of knowledge sharing in the community sector between Near FM, CRAOL and community television stations. I want to reference this. I hope we can bring the community television people before the committee for future discussions. Has Dublin Digital Radio considered the BAI licence process? What regulations does it face outside of this system?

The contributions from Dr. Wheatley have been valuable. I will be reflecting on them again when I read the transcript, particularly with regard to paywall content. With regard to EU copyright on remuneration for local media radio stations and press, when social media companies use content and when it is published online, do the witnesses fear social media companies stating they will not reimburse or remunerate for this content? The knock-on effect would be that community and social media accounts would not have access to verified news.

I thank Mr. Dooley for his contribution on public moneys being denied to companies or firms where redundancies have been made, bonuses are given or trade union membership is blocked. Are there particular funding streams to which we should pay attention now and in future when the BAI or the media commission comes before us?

The value of having the community sector before the committee is that we often use the words "community" and "local" interchangeably when we speak about commercial radio stations. Commercial local radio stations are not identified as community stations. Community media suffers as a result of the fact we use these words interchangeably when community media serves an important purpose in the media landscape.

Mr. Jack Byrne:

Senator Warfield mentioned community television. We are here as CRAOL representing community radio. Those in community television are our colleagues and they communicate through a different media platform. The Senator can see my grey beard. I have been at this for a long time. In 1990 in UCD we held an international community radio conference. The theme of the conference was the right to communicate through all available media. FM was the big buzz at that time. We all wanted FM radio. We are now evolving. We believe these community media hubs will allow other platforms such as community television and we can have an audiovisual platform that will allow people to communicate more. We very much welcome the involvement of community television people. They are part of our sector of community media.

With regard to the paywall, as I mentioned earlier, whatever money or funding revenue we arrive at will probably still not be enough. We believe the various schemes should be targeted with regard to certain identified content that has to be delivered. The schemes need to be broad enough that all types of media, including print media and local radio, should be involved in them. A targeted schemes model would allow community media and other media to avail of the limited fund in a targeted way.

Mr. Se?n Finnan:

We consider ourselves a community media organisation. As a community Internet radio station we see it as a novel form of community media. We are Internet native. We are a website that uses an audio stream. We are not regulated by the BAI and I do not think there is any need for us to be. We do not use public airwaves. We are a website.

Something we are doing that we believe is novel is trying to create a broad membership base of people who subscribe to the radio station but also have access to how the radio station runs. They can come to the general meetings and steer the station in terms of its yearly objectives through the AGM. We are trying to figure out a different way of doing media. If we were doing it under the BAI's regulations with just a voluntary labour force we would not be able to do the administration as well as run the radio station. It would be impossible.

Mr. S?amus Dooley:

I thank Senator Warfield. Part 3A of the Competition Act 2002 contains a checklist for an application for a media merger. Within this checklist are basic tests that have to be applied. These include editorial independence, commitments to resourcing to ensure diversity and compliance with codes of practice, including industrial relations practices. There is already a template. I absolutely agree with the local democracy fund and all of the good State funding on the basis of public interest. If media organisations want this money they should conform to the codes of practice of the State that is giving the money. This includes going to the Workplace Relations Commission and allowing workers to be accompanied at a meeting. Recently I had to write to someone in a company because it had not paid a freelancer for two years. Its response was to cancel the column with immediate effect. This company should not get a penny from the State. It will apply and it will probably end up getting money. We need joined-up thinking on this. If organisations want to argue for libel reform and public interest journalism there is a contract. One of our concerns is that there has been a loss of employment and enforced redundancies. There has also been a loss of work to freelancers. We do not want the very companies that enforce compulsory redundancies then filling the slots with State funding. This would be wrong and counter-productive.

On a positive note, that being positive from my point of view, the NUJ has suggested a voucher system. Senator Malcolm Byrne asked for new ideas. In our recovery plan we spoke about the notion of tax credits for households that took online subscriptions, free vouchers for online or print subscriptions to those aged 18 and 19 years and a voucher system for those who qualify for the free TV licence. This would go some way towards addressing the democratic deficit being spoken about with regard to encouraging younger people to access online media and making sure older people are not disadvantaged. It is not a perfect system but it is a legitimate concern that has been raised. I know why paywalls exist but the notion of exclusion is one that we cannot ignore.

Dr. Dawn Wheatley:

I want to touch on several issues. The Senator asked about the Digital Services Act.

Other colleagues might be in a better position to talk about that and may have considered what happens if that does not work out as intended. The Senator mentioned the concern about people not having access. That is absolutely a concern of mine. I mentioned in my address that I understand why news outlets have those paywalls, as is their commercial right, but that any journalism funded through these new State supports should not be paywalled. The Future of Media Commission's report states that content funded under the scheme should be available at the point of consumption and archived. I reiterate that that has already been thought about and is a concern.

This is not just about access. There is a sense of disconnection. People are avoiding the news, which is challenging for us and many journalists to accept. I mentioned the digital news report in Ireland last year. When asked, between 30% and 40% of people said they actively avoided the news. This is not just a question of whether information is provided and accessible, or paywalled or not, but about the engagement audiences have and whether they feel it is relevant. People of all ages are in a high-choice media environment where they can turn off the depressing news and spend time on Netflix, scroll through TikTok or do whatever else. That is also a challenge, since this is not just about the paywall infrastructure, but also making the public feel that the news is valuable. There is no easy solution to any of this but beyond just the financial structures, there is a question of making sure the public see value in this.

Mr. Colm O'Reilly:

I want to address the point on the EU copyright directive. One thing that we eagerly look forward to in the implementation of the Future of Media Commission's report is how quickly we get to the point where there is a review of the EU copyright directive, particularly Article 15. Looking abroad, especially at Australia, where there has been more success in getting big tech to pay an equitable part in contributions to the news ecosystems, the legislative process has played a significant role, particularly with the use of the competition authority and how it has taken an active role in examining the impact of big tech platforms on advertising and the distribution of content. As we have seen with the Digital Services Act, they also have a role in the verification of content and how it is accessed. I will ask my colleague from the Irish Farmers' Journalto speak because we had a question about how to fund this. As a title which talks to a particular part of Irish society, the model of the Irish Farmers' Journalis especially good. I ask Ms Sammi Burke to talk about it.

Ms Sammi Bourke:

To add to that, when we talk about big tech, the EU copyright directive, how it can be implemented and how we can work with it, we are all looking at it from a publishers' perspective and asking how we can be remunerated for the content used every day by big tech companies. They get so much of the advertising income. It is hard for us to establish whether any of our discussions with big tech companies are fair. We are all under agreements in which we cannot discuss how we are remunerated or what exactly we are expected to give in our content. That is a challenge for us as an industry. There are concerns about what is fair and what content companies are willing to pay for or not. They are deciding on that. All content is being used. We have several products. The Irish Farmers' Journalis the main product in our stable but we also have The Irish Field, the Irish Garden Magazine, and Irish Country Magazine. They will pick and choose what products they believe are worth remunerating. However, content from all of our publications is used. It is difficult and we definitely need assistance from Article 15 of the EU copyright directive.

When we talk about different business models, we have a niche market, so we do not cover sports or courtrooms. We are talking to a local, niche, specific audience because we cover rural Ireland with the Irish Farmers' Journal. We see our role as being to assist farmers to ensure that agriculture survives in this country and is a profitable business. Our role is to help farmers to look at their business models, increase their performance and remain viable in the future. For us, a paywall model is critical to be able to continue to invest in our own products. An advertising model alone would not support what we do. The costs of our newsprint have increased significantly in the last 18 months, by about 150%. The costs of staff are increasing and maintaining staff is difficult.

Our business is transitioning and changing rapidly, so the expectations on our staff are growing. Journalists for the Irish Farmers' Journalused to need to be able to investigate, produce and file a story. They are now also expected to change that story so that it is suitable for online distribution, to look at if there is potential for a contest, whether they can produce a video and interview, and they also need to look after social media channels. There is a much greater expectation on our staff. We have to continue to look after our people to ensure that we can produce great content and serve our audience. Without having a paywall and expecting people to pay for our content, we would not be viable as a business.

Mr. John Purcell:

I listened with interest to the points made. I think we have much of what the Senator is looking for in radio already. Some 79% of people listen to radio every week. It is a trusted medium. As Dr. Wheatley said, it is free at the point of consumption and it is archived since we are required under our licences to archive what we do. We are already regulated. The model exists but our funding model is broken.

Senator Warfield asked whether we had chosen to be under the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland umbrella. We are tightly regulated. That interchange shows the difference since other media have a choice and are not regulated at all. The elephant in the room is the social media giants, which are not regulated. Next year, they will be regulated to an extent but that will be paid for by the Exchequer. We are feeling particularly sore about that and would like something to be done. A point was made about what the Future of Media Commission has missed. I do not think it is a miss but we are anxious about the various funding schemes that are described as being non-platform neutral. We fear they will go in the same direction as the sound and vision scheme and that one of the most popular and trusted forms of media, radio, will end up not receiving its fair share. We believe it would be appropriate, in these funding schemes, to ring-fence for various sectors, with a specific amount for radio, local papers, and for national newspapers and other broadcasters. We feel that lack of clarity may end up with a case of trying to please everybody but pleasing nobody.

Mr. Bob Hughes:

I have a quick point on fairness and how it is judged with regard to remuneration from tech platforms. There are non-disclosure agreements but is quite clear that it is easier for tech platforms to deal with bigger organisations. They might find that a stand-alone newspaper is left behind. In our experience, some parts of the country which only have stand-alone newspapers that are not parts of groups, or maybe smaller groups of newspapers, are not getting the same level of engagement. If the Government legislates for a digital markets unit, that can have some role in adjudicating whether all media are treated fairly and equally and ensuring that smaller ones are not left behind. Our mantra is that no one should be left behind.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Warfield for that line of questioning.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I welcome our guests. It is great to have an array of representatives from different sectors. The final point made by the previous contributor, that no one should be left behind and we should have a level playing pitch, is important. When advertising revenue fell off a cliff during Covid, local print media was left behind in terms of access to funds. That shone a spotlight on the BAI and the sound and vision fund, which provided support for independent broadcasters but nothing for the print media. We in the Oireachtas heard that loud and clear from print media outlets in every constituency.

In the context of the recommendations of the report on the future of media, this meeting, with people from all parts of the public service media platforms, is important. We are here to discuss future business model plans and a long-term vision for the media sector. I refer to the 50 recommendations of the Future of Media Commission. I will forfeit my time to allow the witnesses to best express their asks so that we, as legislators, can formulate this and bring recommendations to the Government. What I am hearing loud and clear is that the establishment of funds, be that through schemes for court reporting, news reporting media access and training or community media, will ensure we can protect the viability, sustainability and continuation of public media services and that we have an economy to support jobs and new graduates that will be sustainable in the long term. I welcome the views of any of our guests in that regard, be they from the NUJ, Independent Broadcasters of Ireland or Newsbrands. I want to hear from each medium. I will open it up to the contributors to give their asks in terms of where we need to go in the coming months and the structure that is needed, be that in the short, medium or long term.

Mr. Frank Mulrennan:

I recently heard a beautifully crafted documentary on Achill Island, in the Deputy's part of the country. It was funded by the sound and vision programme. I listened to it intently when it was broadcast on RTÉ radio. It struck me that although it is great to have such documentaries funded by the taxpayer, there is the potential within the newspapers in the Celtic Media Group, as well as within the newspapers of other local, regional and national publishers, to do the same. We are trying to do the same. We are investing in our videographic resources. We are reaching for funding to upskill and provide that level of content for our online audience but it is an unequal battle. Yes, we are grateful for the VAT change, but it is doing no more than neutralising the hurt we are taking each year in terms of the reduction in our circulation revenue.

In terms of what Deputy Dillon has asked us to think about, what is crucial is that we are looking for a rebuilding of our business model. The people who do the job I do are very skilled at cutting costs. It becomes a one-way trick. To have a sustainable model of journalism, we need a combination of State resources coming through the Future of Media Commission and the necessary level of investment in skills, alongside the fact that the tech giants must be made to pay. In fairness, Google has done something. Facebook, however, has done zero. It is not one item on the menu; there are a number of items. Without that, it will be a classic case of people shouting "Stop" when it is too late.

Mr. Conor Goodman:

As regards funding, the Deputy referred to advertising falling off a cliff during the Covid pandemic because all commerce basically stopped. One of the things that helped to sustain us during that time was public service advertising and announcements. Departments placing public service announcements in local or national newspapers is one method of funding. That goes for local and national newspapers. It also conveys important public messages. The same can be extended to local and national radio stations. That is one method.

There are a number of funds available. Google provides funding through its Google News initiatives, for example. The Irish Timeshas accessed that several times. We have accessed funding through the Department of Foreign Affairs from the Simon Cumbers media fund. There was a once-off global diaspora fund as well. In those cases, the funding is usually contingent on the applicant submitting a proposal to do a particular story, travel to a particular location or complete a project. Although the funder in all those cases tries to set up a clean hands funding operation between the funder and the fundee, with a committee making the decision, it does mean the funding is ultimately subject to certain terms and, directly or indirectly, the funder is deciding how the media should behave. I would counsel against too much of that type of funding model. I am more in favour of direct funding through a media fund, ideally contributed to by technology firms, along the lines of the RTÉ licence fee. RTÉ is not told to do certain things with that money.

Without funding, our entire industry would be in difficulty. There was reference to the spiralling newsprint costs and how crippling they have been.We are entering generally difficult waters. I had a disturbing experience last weekend when, on Sunday morning while driving into town, I stopped at a Spar shop on Baggot Street and asked where the newspapers were located. I was told the shop does not stock newspapers any more and that I would have to go to Tesco across the road. All we need is for Tesco to pull out next. The retail model is in danger of breaking down. That is something that could take us all by surprise. One would move into home delivery and the subscription model. To be straight up with the committee, our subscriptions, which we consider our future, bring in less than 20% of our revenue. We want to move that to 25% in five years but that will be a significant struggle and involve really leveraging that model. Digital subscription is a tough business to be in. It is ever more competitive. Publishers across Europe are getting more aggressive. Digital subscriptions are part of the answer, but only part.

Mr. S?amus Dooley:

When I started as a trade union official 25 years ago, many of the training initiatives in the print sector were done by the FÁS print industry training committee. There is no equivalent whatsoever of that body now. There is no national in-service training body. There is no one national body for the media industry. To go back to a question I was asked earlier, I do not believe the new media commission, which has so many powers and so much responsibility, will be able to do that. The industry, and the implication for the industry, are sufficiently important that we need a separate training and development agency, not just to bring people in but also to assist, perhaps through a transitional fund, in the kind of transferring, training and upskilling that were referred to by Mr. Mulrennan. We need that. My concern is that the all-singing, all-dancing body that will replace the BAI is simply not going to work. All present are aware that training, education and development tend to be an add-on extra. What I am saying is that we need to do them. We do not need to go too many years back to see a time when it was done very effectively.

On a final point in terms of the reference to public service advertising, I want to echo a concern that was issued earlier by Local Ireland in particular. We need far greater transparency in this country as to how ads are allocated, why we are working through agencies, how decisions are made and what are the criteria. There has to be much more transparency in that regard. I echo the DCU line on that. If we are talking about public service funding, and it is a necessary part of the structure, we need transparency. We want to make sure there is absolute clarity on how those ads are allocated and who gets them. I am still at a loss as to why ads have to be placed through an agency. During Covid-19, there was absolutely no reason that HSE ads had to go through an agency at all and there was no need for a broker system for that. There are fundamental issues about the allocation and, in particular, issues about cross-ownership of agencies, also linked to media ownership. I am not going to go into that here at this hour of the evening, but they need examination.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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We would need another hearing on that. I call Mr. O’Reilly.

Mr. Colm O'Reilly:

There is a broader macro point around the Future of Media Commission and where all of our models are going to. Fundamentally, a newsprint publisher is now in the audio game because they are investing in podcasting. Does that make us a radio station? No, it does not, but the consumer is taking the journalism in that fashion. We are investing in video clips, in streaming and in video. As a result, the consumer is taking journalism in that individual fashion but it does not make us a TV station.

Senator Dillon asked what are the asks. The big challenge from a legislative perspective is that the traditional demarcation lines between TV, radio and print are breaking down. We are all existing in an area of grey and I think the legislative process has to try to keep up with that. As we look at funding, that key question of what is defined as public service journalism and how it extends right into the reach of our communities, and potentially those communities that have less of a voice, becomes the biggest, most central question for all of us, rather than thinking along the traditional lines that “radio gets this, TV gets this and newspapers get this.” That world is disappearing very quickly.

Mr. Ronan McManamy:

There is the question of why funding is important but how the funding is designed is probably more important. Sound and Vision was designed to give us money to support public service broadcasting but it does not. It is important that the new schemes that are coming are designed in a fashion we can avail of. As I said earlier, there is no point in us ending up with funding to do one-off documentaries around our schedule when our current affairs show is being wound down, or our new service does not have the credibility it previously had, which means we cannot attract staff and so on. A huge amount of funding has to be directed to securing what traditional media in the country has already achieved because what is happening at the moment is that it is winding down, particularly with the tech giants coming in and taking over half of the cake. Even with money that is committed, if there is a will to sit down with the media owners to help to design a scheme that works, I think we can make better use of money that is committed.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you. That is helpful. I call Mr. Purcell.

Mr. John Purcell:

It is an interesting point that Mr. O’Reilly makes about podcasts and print publishers getting into podcasting. I would again point to the dichotomy in regard to the content. We are regulated in terms of the audio content we do on FM and we have a very detailed commercial communication code, while podcasts do not have that. Our obligations are completely different. There is a need to look at a new way of broader regulation, but in a more equitable form. The large social media and online giants can choose who to promote and who to boost, and changes in their algorithms, for example, can be the difference between viability and going bust. There is no accountability in that regard.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you. I thank Deputy Dillon for that line of questioning. I call Deputy Joe Flaherty, who has a background in this area.

Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I am not on the committee but my background is in regional press. I spent all of my working life before I came into politics in the regional press. I would have crossed paths with Seamus Dooley many moons ago when he was in the latter years of his career on the Roscommon Champion, and we spent a night in a pub in Roscommon, although we did not actually work together. I worked with Linda O'Reilly, so it is great to see her here. I think she was the only person who ever had the temerity to ask Eugene McGee for a pay rise so she should be commended for that. It is great to see all of the witnesses here.

I am struck by two points, one from Frank Mulrennan and one from Mr. O’Reilly. It is that the funding model for the industry is broken.We are looking at Sound and Vision, the broadcasting levy and what was done with VAT, but I believe all of those are fundamentally just sticking plasters. I think everybody in the wider public would agree we have an intrinsic regional, local and community media that will not be found anywhere else in the world. In particular, if we look at what is coming from Europe at the moment, the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine was looking yesterday at geographical indication, GI, status and the new regulations coming in from the EU. There are geographical indicators in the regional press in Ireland that will not be replicated anywhere else in the world. We are dealing with intrinsically national sports, with our teanga náisiúnta and with all of these things.

There is a need and probably an opportunity. I am struck by the fact the organisations are here collectively as newspapers and radio. I always feel one of the two is going to miss out in the way they are battling for funding at the minute, and I think they need to come as one voice. There is this thing of representations being made from the regional press and then from the local radio station, whereas they need to come as one. We need to protect community and local media, regardless of whether it is done digitally or in print.

The model has changed. When I started with Eugene McGee, at the first interview I had with him when he was giving me the job, he was perplexed because people always asked him how his newspaper was selling. He said, “It does not matter what I say as it is only 15% of my income. It is how many ads I sell.” Yet, by the time the crash came, most newspapers were lucky if they were 50:50 between advertising and circulation. For many of those small newspapers now, unfortunately, their circulation revenue is probably bigger than their advertising, and it is dwindling. In terms of the funding model being put forward, young people are not going to buy newspapers and they are not going to pay subscriptions. I appreciate and admire the work the witnesses are doing on this. However, I have three young children and not one of them will ever take out a subscription because they do not put a premium on news content.

The problem for the wider society is that people go onto a website and they look at the headings. There is not a journalist in the room who has not had the problem where a sub-editor put on a heading that the journalist did not like, and the journalist gets tremendous flak because the headline does not reflect what is in the article. That is a huge problem. Dr. Wheatley bore this out in regard to the research which showed that young people are not engaging with news. That is a worry.

I am conscious that I am rambling so I will finish on two points. I believe the industry needs to come together as one, as regional media, which is its biggest opportunity. It needs to come with an entirely new and innovative funding model. All of those pieces are there but, realistically, how long-term are any of them? In the lifetime of any profession, nothing is more precarious than politics. Governments come and go, and there are going to be different attitudes but, ultimately, it is a case of ó ghlúin go glúin, from generation to generation.

The nub of what the witnesses are speaking about today is safeguarding the industry’s future. However, anything we have so far is really a sticking plaster. If we look at a lot of what is being done, an example is the work the local enterprise offices, LEOs, are doing with their e-voucher scheme. If I set up a business tomorrow morning and go into the enterprise office, the first thing they will do is offer me a €2,000 e-voucher to set up my website. I have been making the point that because small businesses are such an intrinsic part of rural Ireland, if the punter wants, he should be able to spend that e-voucher on his regional paper, on his local radio or on developing a website. That is a quick and easy modification and it gets over this issue. We saw what happened with the VAT reduction.

I have great empathy for the journalists. Any time they put up a report that may be construed as in any way favourable to the Government, the immediate kickback online is that it is getting payback for its VAT rebate, which is not the case. The Government saw there was an immediate need to do this and that is why it was done.

My final point concerns the abuse of journalists. This is definitely leading to people making a conscious decision not to go into journalism, and the NUJ has articulated this very well.

Some of the most creative voices in this country, such as the author, John Connolly, came through journalism. It is a university in itself. Real quality has come through journalism. The vitriol at the moment in the public space that is directed at newspaper, digital and television journalists is a damning indictment of modern society. I ask the industry to come together and do something collectively. The industry needs to take a stand. We saw that in East Wall in the past couple of days when a TG4 reporter was interfered with as she was doing her broadcast. That was not the first time we saw it. Everybody in this room appreciates the huge work of TG4. If you were to pick on a media outlet in this country, the last one you should pick on is TG4 yet self-styled journalists in their wisdom saw fit to pick on a female journalist. It was the most despicable of acts. I empathise. It gets very little exposure. We see it particularly with female journalists if they get a high profile. In any career, whether it is journalism or farming and you read The Farmers’ Journal,you want to be the best in your sphere. If any of my daughters said she wants to go into journalism now I would nearly actively discourage her. You want them to do the best they can do in any career.

I will give two challenges in conclusion: to come together as a collective body, and to look for that funding model to safeguard the sector for 25 years. The seeds are there in a couple of areas but it is necessary to think outside the box and come up with something where the money is not coming directly from the Government. There is a need for something like an e-voucher scheme, where businesses can access money and have to give it specifically to the media. The other item I have highlighted relates to the abuse.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Flaherty. We now come to the last piece. This is an opportunity for our stakeholders and witnesses to make a contribution before we wrap up. Is anyone offering? I call Dr. Wheatley.

Dr. Dawn Wheatley:

I will reiterate a couple of points that were touched on earlier but they overlap. A question was asked about diversity in journalism and journalism education. If we focus on gender for a moment there is no issue, certainly in DCU. Each year, there are generally more female than male students in the class. Often the higher performers are female. There is an issue if this does not translate so that they can continue to have successful careers and stay in the industry. We have done a survey with a colleague, Professor Kevin Rafter. The results are not yet published but we can see that the gender pay gap is still there. There are more male journalists in senior positions. The gap is closing but it is still there. There is a problem between who we have as journalism students and who goes on to have a career in the industry.

As Mr. Dooley mentioned earlier, the precarious nature of work is a huge issue. As younger female journalists get older, they can have caring responsibilities and take maternity leave. If they do not have protections in place, it is easier to leave the industry and get a position in a public relations or general communications role. It is all connected. Coupled with that, we have acknowledged the issue of social media abuse. I have done a research project with journalism students which has shown that this is a huge concern for them, and particularly for young female journalism students. Why would they want to put themselves in that situation? It also overlaps with politics, of course. It is present there.

The final point relates to training. As journalism educators, we are well aware that it is impossible to produce a graduate who is ready to enter straightaway. I appreciate hearing that colleagues here are investing. That bridge is important. I would support any further State supports that could help with that bridging because it is important. We know that an in-between stage is needed. In that context, and without offering this as a defence, I should point out that young journalists are expected to be able to master an increasing number of skills, including search engine optimisation, data journalism and editing everything. No skills are eliminated as part of this change. They still need to learn all the core skills - to be able to interview, to verify and to structure a news report. There is also an expectation on them now to be more digital savvy and all these other things. It is a challenge not just at DCU but across all journalism courses to try to find that balance.

Mr. Jerry O'Sullivan:

I will pick up on an earlier point about people who turn off the news and do not want to listen to it anymore. They feel it is too depressing. Deputy Flaherty said that his three children never want to pay for a subscription. There is a certain element of responsibility on journalists for that, in the way we present the news. However, there is a responsibility on all of us, including politicians and the education system. One of the big problems we have with young people is the lack of engagement. There is a lack of civics education in our schools and a lack of training of people to be good citizens. This comes into the idea of wanting to be a politician and wanting to be involved.

A couple of months ago, we did an interview with an EU expert on radicalisation. One of his big points with regard to people who get involved in radicalism was that the online problem is there. They find solace from people who present an easy answer. They are not involved in their local communities. They do not attend local meetings or get involved in politics. They have become convinced that the only way to bring about change is to engage in violence. The reason is that they are not being educated in the importance of being involved, of knowing who is in your local community, and of understanding that things can be changed through democratic processes. This goes back to the importance of journalism in the grassroots democracy argument. We have a role but politicians have a role too. Education has a key role in trying to convince people it is a bad idea to turn off the news, as depressing as it may be. It means you are less involved, you care less about your neighbours and about what is happening, and you are quicker to get frustrated and angry because you do not understand why things have changed in the way they have, why there are so many foreigners down the road in a hotel, why all of that has been done, and why it is a good idea to help people from other countries instead of being guided by the knee-jerk online reaction. There are good points but there is a responsibility on all sectors of society to try to work on that.

Mr. Conor Goodman:

In the spirit of summing up I thank both the questioners and the contributors today. I have learned a good deal about the industry, particularly from some of the points that Dr. Wheatley made. Professor Wheatley, Mr. Dooley, Mr. McGuinness and Senator Carrigy spoke about training and recruitment. I am speaking for The Irish Timesbut also as part of a group that includes local newspapers and many local radio stations, some of which are represented. I would be confident that despite its difficulties, the industry can prevail if the current difficult environment can be made more hospitable for us.

On the various points, we have expressed our enthusiasm for the VAT reduction, which we hope will continue indefinitely. In response to the point about juries and defamation, the reform of defamation laws would be crucial for the future of the industry. My feeling on the constant review of the relationship with the technology companies, particularly the advertising market we share, is that we do not share enough of it. If the relationship between the technology sector and the news providers can always be evaluated and improved, that could only be good for the industry. I thank everyone for listening.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Goodman and everyone who participated today. It was wonderful to have everyone together. We are always tight for space in the committee rooms so it was wonderful to have a loan of the Seanad Chamber today. It allowed for a much broader and insightful discussion. It was nice to hear about the cross-over and link with the commonalities, the common threads. There was some tough listening and learning, especially for those of us in government who have to act on what the witnesses were saying. We will certainly strive to do everything we can as a committee to ensure measures are put in place so that there is a 20-year, 30-year and 50-year sustainability into the future.

I thank all our witnesses for attending. Before we conclude, Senator Carrigy has one final observation.

Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael)
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I have one point to make and a quote to read. I forget who made one comment earlier, but it concerned shops not carrying the newspapers. I am a small retailer and I carry newspapers. I have had varying experiences, including having to get a second delivery company to supply one particular paper, at a high cost to me, just to be able to carry that one publication, despite my own distributor pulling up outside my door to drop off other newspapers. That distributor was not allowed to drop that specific newspaper to me and I had to go and source another distributor and pay a significant sum just to carry that newspaper. Recently, a distributor in the midlands, Gaffneys in Mullingar, which carried all the titles, pulled out of the business.

For me to carry all the newspaper titles would mean having to get two distribution companies to deliver. This is why some businesses are pulling out from carrying newspapers. I am only paying one company, so I am not carrying all the newspaper titles. This is because of the high cost. It would not make financial sense for me to pay another delivery company when I already have one coming to my shop. I ask those witnesses concerned with this issue to come together as a group and look at this aspect. I say this because more businesses are finding things tight, especially in rural areas, and they are not going to carry all the newspaper titles because of this necessity to pay two different distribution companies. I ask that this topic be examined. As I said, I am coming from the perspective of being a small retailer and this is the situation I find myself in, as do many others.

I will finish up with a quote from the Future of Media Commission report. I have it and I have read it in full. I and others on the committee, including Senator Malcolm Byrne and Deputy Dillon, have a great interest in the future of media and ensuring we provide for this. The quote reads:

Ireland’s media sector has an enduring value and importance to members of the public, to wider society and democracy. It rates comparatively well in terms of a number of respected international benchmarks, has delivered well on its public service aims and is broadly valued and trusted by the public.

I say well done to all the witnesses' organisations and thank them for all their good work.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I concur with what Senator Carrigy said. I also have experience of being on the retailer side of things, and of having to go in at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. to put the inserts into the different newspapers when all those deliveries arrive on a Sunday morning. Then there is the job with the returns as well. Perhaps we could examine this issue with the intention of making it a little easier for retailers to deliver the sales pitch for the witnesses' newspapers. I am sure Mr. O'Reilly will have something to say on this.

Things have changed a little, but I have feedback in this regard, as well as my own experience. This may be a matter we need to look at in respect of making it easier and thereby ensuring retailers do not decide to stop getting two staff members to come in the morning, before the shop doors are even opened, to prepare the newspapers, put the inserts in and then have them out on the shelves, not forgetting the requirement, when 10 p.m. comes, another hour must be spent doing returns, filling out the forms and stacking the newspapers and putting them outside. Something must be done to ensure we do not end up in the situation we heard about earlier, where we walk into convenience stores to find newspapers were no longer being sold.

Mr. Colm O'Reilly:

It is on the radar.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. That is good. The committee looks forward to continuing our examination of these issues and working with and for the sector so we can play our role in supporting the sustainability of the sector as a vital element of our democracy. I believe it was Warren Christopher, the former US Secretary of State, who said that without free and independent media true democracy is unattainable. Events across the globe have shown us how important trustworthy public service media are in all their forms. I thank everyone. In particular, I thank Senator Mark Daly, the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, for allowing us to use the lovely surroundings of this Chamber and for hosting this important committee meeting. I will give him the final word.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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The last word, as would be said in some broadcasting institutions. Before I make my final comments in that regard, I welcome the Munster Young Carer of the Year, Cara Darmody. She is in the Gallery and is one of our extraordinary young citizens. She was named the Young Carer of the Year in the Netwatch Family Carer Awards. I thank her for coming here today with Richie Molloy, all the way from Tipperary. We are really delighted she is here and celebrate her great achievement.

The Chair referred to newspapers not being made available. The Spar shop on Merrion Row informed us just last month that it is no longer carrying newspapers. This is in the heart of Dublin city. It is a real worry for people in our society. As I said, I walked the city of New York and I could not find a Sunday newspaper. The Chair also referred to a statement from the US. Thomas Jefferson said that if we expect people to be uninformed and free, then we expect what never was and never shall be. The witnesses' organisations are an important part of the information flow and of democracy. The challenge is that if we do not have a free press, then people will not be informed. We need this endeavour to be funded because the whole business model has changed. We now have social media undermining, to put it bluntly, democracy itself. In this regard, the Government and the State must support what is essentially one of the pillars of our democratic society. We are coming together here as part of that and voicing this message in one of the Chambers of what is the witnesses' Parliament as well.

I see that Jerry O'Sullivan from Radio Kerry is here, so I will wrap up on a local issue. As Deputy Griffin pointed out earlier, it is great to have Mr. O'Sullivan on the receiving end of questions for a change. Additionally, he and I played Gaelic football together for Kenmare Shamrocks for years, so we were always in communication, although I never received a pass from him in my entire life, and mostly that was because I was well known as someone to never give the ball to. I was a defender, but then he was a much better one. Equally, though, Mr O'Sullivan's brother, Johnny, was a much better footballer than Jerry would ever be. That was mostly because we lost Jerry to journalism, and the world is better for this. I do not think he would ever have kicked a point like Seanie O'Shea did. What Jerry does every morning is important, as people do in all local radio stations, as well as in the local newspapers. They, along with the national broadcasters and newspapers, hold people to account and ask the hard questions because this also informs the public. People can then form their opinions.

What has been pointed out here concerning people on social media having those platforms as their places to gather information is a real worry for our democracy and society. There is a bigger question here, to which Senator Malcolm Byrne refers to often, which is the Wild-West nature of media now. It is dangerous. We have seen its impact in other countries, especially in the US. We have also seen it happen during the Brexit referendum in the UK, where this type of media was used. It is not necessary to have spies in countries any more. Foreign agents do not need to be on the ground. They can be in people's phones in every house in the country. This is a worry, as we saw during Brexit and in the US presidential election in 2016. We must not be complacent in thinking we do not have such a problem here. We do. We must address it and I thank all the witnesses for being here.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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This concludes our business for today.