Mr. Brian Greene:

On the 7% allocation, the last Minister to increase the licence fee was John Gormley, which is going back quite a bit. It went up to €160. Public service media need funding to defend against the onslaught of negative stuff that is coming from online. The licence fee has been set at €160 for 17 years now. Community radio, local radio, RTÉ and Virgin Media all take money from that licence fee revenue, albeit with only 7% going to everyone other than RTÉ. The fee has to be looked at. Increasing it was one of the recommendations from the Future of Media Commission that was not accepted by the Government. Keeping the fee at €160 for 17 years is crazy.