Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

On the last item that was raised by the Minister and Deputy McManus, I would happy to proceed with Question Time as soon as possible, but I respect that Deputy McManus has planned her day around it being scheduled to commence later. The sooner questions could be taken, the better it would be for me.

On the Bill, consideration has been long, drawn out and detailed. I thank the Minister's officials as well for the briefings we were given when asked for them. A genuine effort was made to keep the Opposition informed on most details and that is welcome.

I also acknowledge that the Minister took on board much of what, although not everything, we asked for on Committee Stage. I am disappointed this legislation is not more ambitious in terms of the reform it seeks to bring about. We could have made much braver attempts to put in place a more modern, effective, cost-effective in particular, and fairer system of funding public service broadcasting or at least given an indication in the legislation that we would do that. It was decided not to do that. That is being overly cautious and represents a missed opportunity.

I recognise that other positive reforms are being introduced in regard to the new channels being proposed. The film channel in particular is a brave step by the Minister in an attempt to support Irish film and Irish film industry. That is a positive measure. The funding around that may not be as straightforward as the Minister has suggested, but we will wait and see how that develops in the months and years ahead.

I made a point during the debate on Second Stage, which Deputy McManus has carried forward more recently and in a far more proactive way than I have. The idea of having a single communications regulator that would also deal with broadcasting makes sense in Ireland and it is a pity it was not fully developed at a much earlier stage. This is something that will probably happen in time; ComReg will be the regulator for transmission and facilitation of media through broadband but will also manage content, similarly to the UK's Ofcom. I welcome the fact that we have now moved away from having separate regulatory regimes for public and private sector broadcasting. It is important that we apply the same standards to RTE as to TV3 and others.

I acknowledge the efforts the Minister has made to protect children in advertising by setting up new codes and giving powers to the new authority. This is genuinely welcome. We should have gone further and applied the same rationale to alcohol advertising that we apply to junk food advertising which targets children. This is something to which we may return at a later stage.

This has been an interesting process that probably would have finished six months ago if it were not for the crises we have had to deal with in the House, which distracted legislators from Bills such as this one. This resulted in an embarrassing situation in which RTE did not have a board for six or eight weeks at the start of the year because this Bill had not been finalised. Some lessons have been learned in terms of process. I thank the Minister for accepting more amendments than most other Ministers would have for such legislation and I encourage him to continue to consider the kind of reform we have been proposing, even though it has not been part of this Bill.

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