Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

The broadcast media plays a major part in all our lives. Hardly a day goes by without every household in Ireland turning on the television or the radio. This Bill clearly represents a milestone in the delivery of broadcast services. There is no point in having very good technical quality if it is not matched by good content. It is clear that vision is needed in that regard. I regret the limited timeframe for the debate on this important issue. This is a missed opportunity. People often fail to participate in the planning process, for example, until its consequences become evident as the bulldozers roll in. The same thing will happen in this instance.

The Government's failure to provide enough time for this debate will mean that many people will not know until it is too late that they could lose services they are currently enjoying. There will be great resentment among such people if the proposed changes creep up on them. The number of people who lose services is equivalent to the combined population of counties Meath and Longford. If the Government tried to withdraw other services from those counties, there would be a national outcry. That will happen if a decent debate on this issue does not take place.

We need to ensure that quality free-to-air services are offered to consumers, who should be central to this debate. When the Ryder Cup was not designated as a free-to-air event, it was available only to those who could afford to pay for it. That such circumstances could arise again should be of concern to all of us. We need to outline a clear vision of the kind of service that should be offered to the public. It should not be delivered on an incremental basis. We have debated the nature of the broad vision we should have. Surveys in the recent past have found that when people who predominantly read British newspapers are asked to name their public representatives, they are likely to name British politicians. We will make a big mistake if we do not protect the integrity of the content that is delivered.

The explanatory memorandum that accompanies the Bill states that it aims to establish a market-responsive model for licensing digital terrestrial television in Ireland. The use of such a model in the broadband sector has led to inadequate delivery of broadband services to many people. I do not favour the hands-off approach that is adopted in many sectors. ComReg's consumer protection function does not extend to NTL and other service providers. Consumers were the losers when NTL recently decided to impose a charge on customers who do not pay by direct debit. There is no competition in many cases, which means that consumers do not have a choice and pay more than they should. Perhaps the points I have made relate more to content and the availability of services than to technical quality. Many people do not have enough money to pay for television channels which are not free-to-air.

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