James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann shall consider the Report of the Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment entitled ‘Report of the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Public Service Broadcasting’ copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 13 December 2017.

I represent the committee today in my capacity as Vice Chairman because the Chairman, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, is not available to present the report to the House.

6 o’clock

We have a report, which was published at Christmas, on the future funding of public service broadcasting. It is quite a substantial, significant report and I thank the members of the committee, Deputies Ryan and Stanley who are here and the other members who contributed very constructively to the report. I also thank the many organisations we consulted and conferred with in the generation of the report for their submissions, culminating in a very large and well run event in Dublin Castle where we consulted many stakeholders, media outlets and organisations. The Minister gave the keynote speech on that day and was involved very much throughout the process.

I also welcome some interested parties. The chief executive officer of Screen Producers Ireland, Elaine Geraghty, is in the Gallery. Screen Producers Ireland has been very engaged in the debate. The former Minister, John Gormley, is also in the Gallery and it is good to have him here today. He is the former Minister for environment and heritage, which goes to the core of much of this. I will present the report and I look forward to the debate and responses from the Minister, other committee members and other Deputies.

The media landscape is changing as never before. Digital technologies are challenging many long-held assumptions about the role and relevance of everything from the traditional broadcast media to print. Consumers get their news and entertainment from an ever expanding range of sources and the multitude of channels, online options and non-traditional sources of news and media continue to expand and multiply and indeed to confuse and to dazzle at the same time. Much of the diversity is welcome but, as was made clear by many recent events not least in the social media space, the abundance brings with it a lack of transparency leading to some uncertainty about the origin and reliability of what is being transmitted and consumed, what is the single source of truth, what are the authoritative sources and what is public service content and what is not. In such a context, the need for balanced, impartial, well-resourced and independent public service broadcasting has never been stronger and, to my mind and the mind of committee members, it represents a clear public good.

We know RTÉ and TG4 among others are funded through a mix of licence fee revenues, grants from the Exchequer and commercial revenue, and reports are published annually on how the funding is used. As well as challenging the status of established media, however, digital media are also disrupting the funding model on which traditional media have relied. The current funding model for public service broadcasting relies on that combination of licence fee and commercial revenue. However, income from the TV licence fee is undermined by evasion and by an increasing number of consumers who consume their media through devices, be it iPads, iPhones and other digital devices, or through other non-traditional means rather than a television set. In many cases, they can additionally opt out of the licence fee model entirely. Without evading, they can claim with some grounds they are not actually consuming the traditional media or public service media through the traditional channels. We also know the rate of evasion by those who do enjoy the medium is 14% in Ireland, which is very high compared to 5% in the UK. Certainly to my mind, this is a public good in the same way as schools, hospitals and other essential services. We may not always use them but we consume them and avail of them and society is the better for having them funded from the public purse.

We know commercial revenues are coming under pressure. As I have said, advertiser spending is stretched across many more platforms. Clearly the funding model is no longer fit for purpose. As part of the 2016 work programme the committee decided to carry out elective research on the future funding of public service broadcasting followed by a public consultative process to investigate viable alternative funding models and we devised a series of recommendations.

To continue to add context, public service broadcasting was introduced in Ireland in 1926, with radio and television ever since then becoming an essential part of people's lives. Having a strong diverse public broadcasting sector is essential to Ireland and to every country, but we can only control our own. It ensures that Irish citizens have access to political and social commentary as well as entertainment and cultural productions specific to our nation and people that is indigenous, home grown, represents the best we have to offer and has a particular, unique cultural significance on our landscape. Of course, we often look back to the 1916 commemorations as one such example of public service broadcasting at its very best, highlighting the role of the nation from our unique standpoint.

Irish broadcasting has expanded, as we know, to include State funded commercial and community radio and television stations broadcasting in English and Irish and catering for various age groups in every corner of the island. We have a particular challenge in public service broadcasting in Ireland.

As an English-speaking country we are susceptible to competition from the Anglophone world, from the United States and the UK, perhaps unlike similar countries in Europe which, because of the language situation, may have less alternative content.

A strong broadcasting sector requires steady and sufficient funding. That funding has dropped in recent years because of licence fee evasion and because many people do not have traditional television sets. The committee has come up with a high-level set of recommendations. As the report runs to 373 pages, I will not deal with every line in it. The main recommendations however, are that the responsibility for the collection of the licence fee should be awarded to the Revenue Commissioners, that the licence fee be altered from the obsolete approach of a television set per licence to a broadcasting charge that is applicable to every household, that the public service broadcasters be allowed to negotiate with media platforms to procure fees for the transmission or retransmission of public service broadcasting channels, to distribute the broadcasting charge revenue more equitably across public service broadcasters and to begin examining the funding of independent and local radio as part of that remit, to remove the funding cap; to restore the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection's payments for the licence fee waivers to pre-2010 levels and to link the licence fee to the consumer price index.

This is in line with seven other EU countries. The key recommendation is that the existing charging regime be expanded to capture every household consuming media, regardless of the technology used, incorporating all households with a range of devices and not just those in possession of a traditional television set. On the Revenue Commissioners, I acknowledge there were dissenting voices on the committee but the majority opinion was that the committee would recommend that the responsibility for collecting the fee should be assigned to the Revenue Commissioners. It is known that the Revenue Commissioners are efficient, methodical and have a high rate of collection, and that should tackle the 14% or higher evasion rates we have seen to date.

The level of the fee should be reviewed two years after the Revenue Commissioners take over and every two years thereafter in light of consumer price index changes. It should be noted that this is separate from the indexation formula as set out in the Broadcasting Act 2009, which continues to assess the performance of RTÉ.

The committee is conscious of promoting a sense of fairness and equity in society. With this in mind, concessions which are presently available to old age pensioners and any other concessionary holders - those who currently qualify for discounts or waivers - should be retained and carried over into any future funding model.

I mentioned the removal of the cap. The Committee recommends removing the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection's funding cap for RTÉ. Under the National Recovery Plan 2011-2014, funding for the free television licence scheme had been frozen at 2010 levels of expenditure for the duration of the plan. While this decision had no impact on those benefitting from the scheme - in other words the recipients of such waivers - the funding for RTÉ was reduced by €4 million as a result of this cap.

The committee also recommends that all references in the legislation to public service broadcasting and public service broadcasters should be changed to public service media where appropriate. Public service media covers a wider range. Broadcasting is traditionally a reference to television and radio. Public service media covers a wider arc and the multitude of different channels and types of media that now exist.

In terms of the allocation of funding generated by the fee, the committee recommends the existing allocation be reviewed to ensure that resources are provided to a diversity of existing and new sources in a fair and equitable way. Priorities may include restoring TG4 to more sustainable funding levels, funding independent regional, local and community radio and television stations or amending the Broadcast Authority of Ireland's sound and vision fund to allow funding for a wider category of broadcasting to be supported. The committee also anticipates that the expected additional funding achieved by these measures will lead to increased funding for the independent production sector. This is to be welcomed.

Following on from the consultation process and the forum on the future funding of public service broadcasting, the committee recommends that the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment should undertake a detailed economic analysis to assess the viability and sustainability of introducing innovative alternatives to the current funding model. The committee recognises that traditional media providers, including national and regional newspaper providers, are under financial pressure and are operating in a digital environment. The old lines between print and broadcast media are becoming blurred. The committee agrees that this area requires further analysis, which the Department may be in a position to carry out following the report.

In terms of retransmission fees, the committee held a number of hearings on this matter, both during the consultation and at subsequent dedicated meetings with the principal stakeholders, largely the broadcasters themselves and subject matter experts, economic and otherwise.

The committee agrees in principle to the introduction of retransmission fees and to give RTÉ the capacity to negotiate with suitable platform providers as long as this does not conflict with its public service obligations. Legislative restrictions have hitherto impeded our public service broadcaster's ability to compete in an increasingly competitive and diverse marketplace, so we recommend lifting that restriction and amending that legislation to enable RTÉ to negotiate and explore the model of retransmission fees.

In June 2017, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, requested the committee to scrutinise the general scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2017 and retransmission fees. The joint committee decided to select the draft Bill and retransmission fees for pre-legislative scrutiny in tandem with consideration of this report on future funding of public service broadcasting. Indeed, the items were taken in parallel because there is significant overlap and it made sense to do so. That report was laid before the Houses on 8 March 2018 and is available to all Deputies and Members who wish to read it.

Those are the key recommendations of the report. As I said, significant work has gone into that, but I look forward to the debate and hearing the views of other Members and of the Minister. On behalf of the committee I would like thank our event management team, Connect The Dots, a facilitative event management company which performed a tremendous job in organising the forum on the future of broadcasting in Dublin Castle, as well as related events, social media and other consultative initiatives.

I would also like to thank the Oireachtas staff members who were involved in that initiative, including the committee officials, and Oireachtas news, TV and sound staff. They broadcast many items live, produced a short documentary after the fact and were very helpful in giving guidance on maximising the engagement from members of the public as well as from the committee members themselves. I also thank the distinguished guests who took part in the panel at our forum, Ms Karlin Lillington of The Irish Times, Mr. Steve Dempsey, Mr. Anton O'Loughlin of Digital Rights Ireland, Ms Patricia Cronin, Mr. Tom Maguire and all of the participants, stakeholders, media organisations and interested parties, as well as all the Deputies, Senators and members of the committee who attended that forum and participated so valuably.

I think we have made a good stab at the report and I think its recommendations are well worth scrutiny. I hope they meet the favour of the House and I look forward to the debate.

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