Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

It is important that serious consideration be given to these amendments. When the Broadcasting Bill was drafted, times were very different and the revenue accruing to broadcasters was probably not subjected to the same type of scrutiny as is currently the case because there was such a flow of it from advertising. In addition, the rate of the revenue from advertising was increasing year on year. However, the position is very different now and the revenues of RTE and TV3 are plummeting. RTE is, by far, the greatest player in the field. In effect, it is the incumbent.

I would have thought that assessing the way advertising revenues are accrued would be a very necessary part of the oversight being given to the new authority. The legislation contains certain protections but it appears that these do not go far enough. Small competitors frequently complain that RTE is not playing fairly in terms of advertising rates. RTE denies this and I accept what it says, yet the suspicion lingers. What is beyond doubt is that the broadcasting sector is under very severe pressure. People are being asked to make sacrifices and have chosen to do so in order to keep their jobs. That raises very important questions with regard to legislation governing the broadcasting sector, to ensure there is fairness across the board.

Fairness across the board means looking at the situation regarding the high earners. High earners attract advertising revenue. Mr. Cathal Goan was before the joint committee last week and he made the point that much of the advertising rates are dependent on the pulling power of different programmes. Clearly, high earners have tremendous pulling power when one sees, for example, the viewership figures for the "Late Late Show". The two are directly related. When times were good and there was plenty of advertising, high earners earned a good deal but perhaps now that times are not good and advertising revenues are way down, that link should be made again. If the advertising revenue is not so good, then the high earners should not be earning such big salaries.

The BBC is looking for 25% to 40% reductions in the salaries of high earners. This is an indication that the culture of paying people enormous amounts of money needs to be rigorously reassessed. Part of the problem I have is that we do not have the annual report from the RTE Authority. There was a long delay in terms of getting the authority established. We have an interim board and I understand the report is with the Department. I had hoped we should have had it before Mr. Goan appeared before the joint committee. I am not aware we even have it now. That makes it very difficult for us to assess.

I must ask the Minister a question, although I believe he is not the appropriate person to ask, since this should be in the report. An issue arose about the independent sector and Mr. Goan was able to say, in effect, "We shall show, in our report, that the independent sector commitments have been lived up to". That is very good, because when times are good the independent sector gets a good deal of work from RTE, and when times are bad the tap is turned off. I have concerns about the sustainability of the independent sector in terms of funding if that type of reduction in income is so severe. Mr. Goan says that its commitment to the independent sector has been lived up to by RTE. However, the funding of the high earners is not stated in that section of the report relating to RTE salaries. Does it apply in the section of the report that is relevant to the independent sector? If that is the case, it is a distortion in terms of support to the independent sector if all the big salaries earned by high profile people are included.

This is not begrudgery. The same argument applies to the Civil Service and politicians. There has been major criticism, for example, of the fact that the salary of the Taoiseach is on a par with that of President Obama. These are questions we have to answer. I do not believe we can sustain that type of very high earning public servant in the broad sense that we had in the past, and we need to get real about what we can afford as a country. There is no doubt that many people now losing their jobs cannot afford to pay their basic debts and yet we seem to be comfortable with the idea of very high incomes at the other end of the spectrum.

I was talking recently to somebody who had come back from Norway and he told me that there the biggest most popular Saturday night television presenter earns a salary of €100,000. I do not know how Norway came to that situation, but it seems we must have be tough in terms of our assessment of how moneys are allocated across the public service and the semi-State companies if we are to work our way through this recession in a way that people can see is fair. If we fail to do this we will be in a very bad position in trying to ensure there is some type of national effort involving people working together to ensure we can get through the recession.

See this speech in context