Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I assume the Deputy is referring to the recent media merger which involved the purchase of a number of a number of radio stations. Having received my Department's assessment, I determined on 22 September this merger was not contrary to the public interest in maintaining the plurality of media in the State. Details of the media merger regime, including the associated statutory guidelines, are available on my Department's website. This assessment process is based upon the Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014, which gives the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the responsibility for assessing proposed media mergers, and empowers the Minister to prevent any merger that is deemed likely to be contrary to the public interest in maintaining the plurality of media in the State.

An important part of the current regime is the requirement on the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, to prepare, every three years, a report on the ownership and control arrangements of media businesses in Ireland. In June of this year, I published the first such report, the Report on Ownership and Control of Media Businesses in Ireland 2012-2014. In this report, which is available on my Department's website, the BAI concludes that there has not been a material reduction in media plurality in the State due to the limited changes in ownership and control in the period 2012-2014.

Furthermore, the international expert group, Sustainable Governance Indicators, ranked Ireland nine out of ten in media freedom and eight out of ten in media pluralism, noting that Irish media is independent, with a pluralist ownership structure.

In my view, the Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014 strikes the correct balance in this area and is working well and, as a result, I am confident that we have a robust and effective set of measures in place to support and encourage a plural and diverse media.

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