Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am very happy to support the Bill presented by the Social Democrats and to have the chance to consider the wider issue of media ownership in our society. The main intention of the Bill is very rational, sensible and reasonable, that is, to take into account a changing, evolving and more digital media world. In a digital world, broadcasters and publishers are acting across a whole range of different platforms and it makes sense to amend our legislation to recognise that reality and to give the existing Competition Acts tools to consider the cross-media ownership issue. That is the central intent of the Bill and I find it hard to understand how people would argue against that. It seems to be a rational description of the reality we face. We all agree on the benefits of media plurality. Therefore, it makes eminent sense to assess media ownership across different platforms and the extent of media reach is one of the key metrics in determining whether there is sufficient competition. That case was well presented yesterday at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment. That committee, under the 2014 competition legislation, was charged with the task of recommending to the Minister a perspective on the proposed merger between Independent News and Media, INM, and Celtic Media, a smaller grouping of newspapers in counties Cavan, Monaghan, Westmeath and Meath, as well as other publishing endeavours across the country. If one just looked at it as a straightforward newsprint media merger, the case would be reasonably strong because there is no overlap between where INM currently has newspapers and where Celtic Media has a presence. However, I articulated my concern at the hearings yesterday, as did all of the academics present and the National Union of Journalists, NUJ, that if one uses the spectrum of cross-media ownership, the picture is different. The owner of Communicorp, for example, is also the largest shareholder in INM and there is a real concern about crossover. The idea of the owner of Newstalk radio and other local and national stations, which also has a significant interest in some of the main national newspaper titles as well as local newspaper titles, having ownership of more local newspapers raises real concerns. It raises concerns for me. We have not reached a conclusion as a committee. We will divide on the issue, I would imagine but my advice to the Minister would be to exercise caution and to seek to protect media plurality by recognising that cross-media ownership is a real issue.

The presentations from the management in both INM and Celtic Media were very good. I do not dispute the integrity or the professionalism of the people in either company. One comment from the Celtic Media management really struck me. The company is obviously trying to survive in a changing media world. It is trying to develop a digital media presence because, as the Bill before us recognises, digital reach is a critical factor in the evolving media evolution that is taking place. Some local newspapers produce very good digital output but Celtic Media has found that, as good as it is, its digital output is a cost stream rather than a revenue stream. We must consider what is happening in the media world and in the ownership of media in this country and acknowledge that a large amount of the money generated is now going to international organisations that have huge power. It is not just the media outlets. Sky is cleaning up in terms of being able to get huge amounts of money from subscriptions without having to engage in any additional production of local news here, for example. It does some production for its overseas business, which is welcome, but it does not provide local news content. It is also able to insert advertising with very little regulation and no charge. It carries RTE services at very low transmission costs and is able to benefit tremendously from that. Similarly, cable companies like Liberty Global are able to make very significant revenue here. The transmission companies are benefitting and generating huge revenue.

That has added to the kind of competition that local indigenous media companies are facing because there are companies such as the hugely successful and popular Netflix that often uses subscription revenue streams to provide content. It is very hard to compete against these types of companies because the quality is very good and they are international organisations. To make it more difficult for local media companies, there are companies like Google and Facebook that take something like €300 million a year in advertising from the Irish market. Increasingly pertinent questions are asked of companies such as Facebook as to whether they are publishing companies or just technology platforms or whether they have editorial responsibility for the stories that are shared on their networks. This increasingly complex digital media world we are in is, more than anything else, characterised by a large number of significant and powerful international companies and a dwindling advertising pie for indigenous companies. It is the same for print, radio or broadcast companies. RTE is in crisis, as is TG4 and I would say that TV3 is also having a tough time in that advertising market but it has survived, thank God. Local radio stations are in real difficulty, as are our local and national print newspapers. We have a problem. The words used in the committee yesterday were that there was a fire across the media world in the State at the moment. As public policy makers, we have a duty of care in the public interest to protect those companies, to protect local content and local journalism and to create the potential for local stories to be told and content created.

I was taken by one of Deputy Lowry's comments at the committee yesterday. He said that "When it comes to the crunch this is about business..." My retort to him was that no, for me when it comes to the crunch it must be decided on the basis of the public interest. As difficult and as challenging as the media environment is nationally, I do not believe the solution can be just a conglomeration of all the local news media sources into a small number of national media companies that might compete or survive in that competitive world against all those international companies. This Bill is correct in saying that we look to protect diversity of ownership and plurality of opinion. It is a cornerstone of democracy and we have an intrinsic interest, maybe more than anyone else, in this issue because we realise that for people to participate in a democracy, the presence of a free, varied and impartial press is critical to the health of that democracy.

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment has started a public consultation process on the funding of public service broadcasting but I believe we can and should widen it out. We will hold a forum on the future funding of public service broadcasting. The technology companies, the radio stations, the newsprint people, the academics and the advertising people must be brought into it to try to understand what is going on here and how can we achieve that dual objective of maintaining Ireland as a centre for innovation in digital services and technology, while at the same time maintaining the State's proud and long tradition of good quality, independent journalism and plurality of media ownership and of public service broadcasting. RTE is not competing with just a number of other Irish independent media organisations; in a sense they are all competing for some of the advertising and other revenues that increasingly is going to large international platforms rather than to the Irish media industry.

I am conscious that the Minister has today come out with statements on digital social networks and how he is going to manage bad behaviour and so on. I welcome that, as do we all. Some of the characteristics of the social networks are very uncertain, but I believe the Minister has to be careful in how he defines what that behaviour is and in understanding one of the first principles we apply in this evolving digital media world before we start legislating at the tail end in restricting communications one way or the other. It is just a word of caution from one of the news stories I heard today. One of the first principles that we adhere to is the plurality of media ownership. This Bill supports that principle; we support the Bill and commend our colleagues in the Social Democrats on using this opportunity to present it.

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