Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I do not envisage that any decision will be finalised this year, for a number of reasons. High among these is the objective of successfully managing the transition from analogue to digital television services by RTE. That is a big project, and RTE has put something like €70 million into building the system and general preparation. The termination of analogue signals across Europe and the move to digital terrestrial television is high on the list of priorities, and I do not see that being interfered with this year.

Deputy Murphy wanted to know whether the television licence charge would be lower. This is a dangerous business. I answered a question about whether it could be less by saying it could, but I did not say it would. We have not reached that stage yet. What I did say was that any public service broadcast charge will be a replacement of the existing television licence. This is not an additional charge or tax or levy. If we improve the efficacy of the collection system to avoid the loss of up to €30 million, one never knows. I might well surprise Deputy Murphy, as the amount conceivably could be less.

With regard to the distinction between business and domestic viewers, there are many anomalies in the existing system, one of which is the fact that only one television licence is needed for a 500-bed hotel, but if one has three cottages occupied for two months a year on the west coast - or a caravan, if that is one's choice - one must have a television licence for each of them. There are issues such as this that need to be ironed out to be fair to consumers.

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