Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

She is still working freelance. She did an excellent job reporting the news, the views and, above all, the feelings, hindrances, accessibility problems and food and service problems people had. They are the people - of the people, by the people. Tipp FM reports from 6 a.m. until 12 midnight. Then there is Tipp Mid West radio with Joe Pryce, Pat Murphy and so on and the many backroom staff. It now has a new head of news, Ms Angela Doyle Stuart, whom I wish well. She is from Carlow. They go out and look into communities and what is going on in them. They cover community events across a broad spectrum, whether iománaíocht, cluichí peile, rince nó amhránaíocht. There is "Down Your Way with Eamon O'Dwyer" every week without fail in the paróiste of Tiobraid Árann, thuaidh agus theas. He listens to and gives exposure to the people in those areas, what they do, the culture they want to create and stimulate, how they have existed and an stair freisin - the history, as well as the culture and heritage. It is so important; if this was not done, we would lose these things. These stations do such tremendous work, and I want money ring-fenced for them from the licence fee or whatever this legislation provides for. I do not see enough of it. There are options here to support those local and regional stations. They come up here once a year, we all have a big hoo-hah, we meet them in the audiovisual room, we listen to them and we have a photo shoot. They were here only a few weeks ago. However, we need to support them and put our money where our mouth is. They are the lifeblood of the community. Ní neart go cur le chéile. They are the people who listen and give a voice to those people out there in the communities, the villages, the townlands, up in the mountains and down in the lowlands, and when there are flooding crises.

Last week in my town of Cluain Meala, we had a march about mental health. Tipp Mid West were the only people who covered it. RTÉ was not interested in the mental health problems in Tipperary or in covering them - not at all. It has more - I will not use the word "sexy", but it has different things it wants to produce and talk about. I am calling out RTÉ tonight - and Deputy Bruton is the Minister on watch - for its failures and failings and for ending up in such debt problems. Many good people worked in RTÉ. I have mentioned Damien Tiernan and Conor Kane and I also wish to mention Martina Fitzgerald, who was here with us for years and went so quickly from our sights. I wish her well, wherever she is. There are programmes on RTÉ that do nothing but make a mockery of rural Ireland from morning to night. We have journalists there on six-figure sums and more who only treat with disdain the people of rural Ireland. When Deputies Danny and Michael Healy-Rae, Michael Collins, I and others speak here, they are only ag gáire at us - laughing at us, mocking us. However, I remind the Minister and RTÉ, if its reporters are watching, that we are elected by the people of our constituencies for the time being, and only the time being, because we must face election. Whether or not we are returned, we will accept the voice of the ballot box. RTÉ has disdain for the people of rural Ireland and demonises them. It is doing so at the moment in the context of coursing and greyhound racing. It did it last week with the beef industry. However, they would have big long faces and noses and ocras on them if they did not have beef to eat or if there was no steak on the menu. Then there might be a different story.

RTÉ is very shortsighted and neglectful of people in rural Ireland. All the people of rural Ireland want is to be left alone, to do what we want to do and to express our feelings, whether in religion - as Christians - or in the Gaelic language as Gaeilgeoirs, agus rince, céilithe, set, seanscéalta agus rudaí mar sin. That is all we want to do, not to be demonised by people who are on savage pay. Some of them went off to other stations abroad and were encouraged back with incomes of more than €500,000 and inducements and so on. As other Deputies said, they are then on C2s that allow them to be self-employed to evade taxes. This all needs to be exposed. Why will RTÉ not come out and expose what is going on in big business, the cartels and the beef industry? It should expose that. I am calling now on the record of this House, as I have done already, for RTÉ to come out and do a proper "RTÉ Investigates" programme on this. It has done some tremendous "RTÉ Investigates" programme, and I salute it on that. The most recent one concerned the carry-on on the Border around Cavan with the employees in the former Quinn industries. That is savagery and nothing else, and I salute RTÉ on what it did in exposing that and the many other exposés it has done.

I criticise RTÉ, however, on the exposé it did on the greyhound industry. It did not have to go back 16 years to an old Chinese film to come up with a contorted, contrived attack on the industry. That is what it was: a contrived and totally biased attack on a sporting industry. If there are some who abuse dogs, and there is a minority, I have no truck with them, I do not support them, and it is a scandal. I do not believe, however, that any dogs from Ireland were ever put into boiling water here. It was a disgusting programme. The footage was ten or 12 years old. Then we find out that researchers on the programme are related to other people. That is not fair journalism. That is an attack on rural Ireland and the pride we have in greyhound racing. There are thousands of jobs in the industry and the spin-off industries. The Minister should remember that every man, woman, boy or girl who has a dog must have a kennel, a trailer, a box, a veterinarian, tackle and every other kind of treatment. They love their animals and want to be able to pursue their sports. We do not need the national broadcaster to do a sabotage job, a hit job, on them at the behest of a small minority, who are faceless in the main, and many of whom are not even from this country. They have an issue with the barbarity of greyhounds following a dummy hare around a track. My goodness, it is so sad, and there being so many other issues, such as the homeless in Dublin and the figures that came out today for homeless children. An exposé needs to be done on that.

RTÉ must be held to account if it produces untruths, but how can it be tackled? I myself was set up on "Prime Time" one night. I came up to meet the Minister, Deputy Ross, and Conor Faughnan and then found out RTÉ had some other person on who made an uninterrupted attack on me because of my views on rural Ireland. The way in which RTÉ behaved regarding the repeal of the eighth amendment was nothing short of scurrilous, biased and disgusting. Honest people who had a certain view and are entitled to hold that view in a democracy were demonised, undermined and caricatured in a disgraceful way by RTÉ. It was nothing short of disgraceful. Morning to night we had "repeal the eighth" on every other programme. We were talking about balance. Where was the balance?

There was no balance whatsoever, only its agenda. It is the liberal agenda that seeks change, with funding from George Soros from abroad and attacks on anything Christian. As regards mentioning the word "Christian", we saw what happened recently in a County Galway town when one of our colleagues mentioned the word "Christian". He was demonised as if he had come from outer space. What is wrong with our Christian values? They stood us well over the decades and now they are demonised by the national broadcaster.

We must have fair play. We need a Minister, and I do not expect it of this Minister, to hold it accountable for giving fair play to the ordinary people of Ireland who pay their way and pay their taxes. Certainly, go after the spongers who will not pay for their licences, but do not threaten every household with a tax that the Government cannot collect. I never advocated that people should not pay for water, but I would advocate that people not pay the RTÉ licence fee while the station is so distorted and so disdainful of anything to do with Christians. It will not investigate the persecution of Christians in the Middle East by ISIS, as well as the persecution of minority Muslim religions and other sects. There must be balance, not wall-to-wall television attacking the respectable people of rural Ireland or rural pursuits and, indeed, anything that is bad about it.

I seek support for local radio stations. They are answerable and accountable to the people. They cover the people and have nurtured many good journalists. They have supported many politicians and other groups and let them have freedom of expression. We are supposed to be a democracy, and not one that is pulled and dragged aside by the moguls in the media industry and the press, the Tescos and all the other moguls, and to hell with the ordinary people who pay the piper. It is time to have meaningful legislation, respect for ordinary citizens and to give power back to the people.

See this speech in context