Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

The Minister stated the broadcaster will come under the regulatory structure to be established under the legislation. I do not see any such reference in the Bill, although I welcome his amendment No. 10 as it at least goes part of the road. The amendment states: "Where a specified premium rate service is advertised or promoted by means of a broadcasting service, it is the function of the Commission to ensure that the premium rate service provider, whose specified premium rate service is advertised or promoted, complies with the conditions attached to the licence in respect of that premium rate service." If, however, a service provider colludes with a broadcaster, only the service provider gets caught and the broadcaster, which has benefited from the scam, may blithely decide, six months later, to engage in this activity with another service provider to see how long they can last before being caught. I expect it would be difficult to prove a case in court.

The provisions do not refer to the broadcaster. This activity cannot take place without the collusion of a broadcaster. I am sorry I did not keep a recent newspaper article about a particular broadcaster which had argued that only 12 complaints had been made about a programme. The suggestion was that seemed to be a small number of complaints. However, if each of those 12 people have been scammed, it is a serious activity for one of our broadcasters to be engaged in. The amendment is welcome and I appreciate the Minister's efforts. I am fascinated that he took the trouble to test the matter himself and good on him for so doing. Nevertheless, it does not deal with the broadcaster, which is a very powerful element in all of this because it is the vehicle that transmits the programme and it is the body people trust. If it was simply a scam in some other form, we would not be as gullible, if that is the correct term. However, the programme is broadcast on television and we tend to trust what comes to us from television. In this case, the broadcaster would get off scot free.

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