Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Section 124 of the Broadcasting Act 2009 sets out the mechanism by which increases or decreases of the television licence fee may be determined. In particular, it allows for the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, to recommend in a report to the Minister an annual licence fee modification. This recommendation is to be based on an annual review on the extent to which RTE has fulfilled its commitments in respect of its public service objectives stated in its annual statement of performance commitments for that financial year and the adequacy, or otherwise, of public funding to enable the corporation to meet its public service objectives.

A review of RTE's 2009 public service commitments and adequacy of funding was carried out by the BAI and submitted to my Department in December 2010. The authority recommended there be no modification made to the licence fee with which I formally agreed.

I expect to receive the authority's review of RTE's 2010 public service commitments and adequacy of funding in the next fortnight. This review will contain a recommendation from the authority on a licence fee modification. I look forward to examining this review and its findings on the adequacy of funding in RTE. This review will inform any decision I may take, in conjunction with the Government, on adjusting the current level of the television licence fee or otherwise. Any such decision will be informed by any relevant decisions taken in the context of the budget.

In making any decision on television licence fee modification, I will need to be mindful of the impact such a modification would have on the recipients of net television licence fee receipts. The legislation provides that I pay approximately 88% of net television licence fee receipts to RTE, 7% to the BAI in respect of the broadcasting funding scheme for public and independent broadcasters and 5% to TG4 in addition to its direct grant-in-aid from Exchequer funds. I will also be very mindful of the impact on persons who pay the licence fee.

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The broadcasting sector in general, including the public broadcasting sector, has been facing a challenging funding environment over the past several years with a large fall in commercial advertising revenues. As regards public sector broadcasters, this situation behoves them to be vigilant on cost containment while trying as far as possible to mitigate the impact on output and programming. I acknowledge that both RTE and TG4 have been proactive in this regard but the efforts must be maintained and indeed intensified.

In addition to the statutory requirement for annual reviews of the public service broadcasters, section 124(8) of the Broadcasting Act 2009 requires the BAI to also carry out a long-term forward looking five-year review on the adequacy, or otherwise, of the funding of public service broadcasters not more than three years after the passing of the Broadcasting Act 2009. I look forward to receiving this review, which is due to be completed by the authority by mid-2012 at the latest, as it will assist in informing any policy decisions I may take on the future public funding of public service broadcasters.

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