Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

After many days of controversy, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, finally got around to admitting he should not have spoken to a lobbyist for a media company, Independent News & Media, INM, about a media merger it was promoting. He still claims that he did nothing wrong but admits that he should not have done it and said he would not do it again. The Taoiseach has agreed with the analysis that a Minister outlining how he intends to handle a referral to a lobbyist breaks no rules, even where the company concerned views the information as significant and commercially sensitive. Is he happy that this is supposedly within the rules? Will he tell us if he intends to change the rules in order that in any future case there would be a clear sanction to prevent behaviour such as this? Has the Government approached the Stock Exchange, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, the Competition Authority or any other official body to ask if they agree that the information provided by the Minister was not commercially sensitive?

This entire affair highlights the fact that there is effectively no national policy on media diversity or media viability, which is just as important. Many organisations representing people working in the sector, as well as the companies, have spent much of recent years calling for a strategy to ensure a professional Irish media sector can survive in the era of the low-cost aggregators and unedited sites. Are we likely to see a response soon to any of these demands? I put it to the Taoiseach that a strategic Cabinet approach to media diversity and viability is called for. Given the most recent revelations, it is something the Government will have to consider very seriously.

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