Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of the broadcasting charge, which was alluded to in the past couple of weeks by RTÉ's television controller, Mr. Andrew Lynch, at the Oireachtas committee. Why is the Government insisting on pushing ahead with plans for a new stealth tax on every household with this talk of a broadcasting charge? Did the Taoiseach not learn any lessons from his experience of the water charges? For years, he has been pushing for a broadcasting charge. Last year, he went so far as to say that if we were Taoiseach, he would introduce it in his first year. Now we have a commission on the future of the media and part of its purpose is clearly to give cover for such a tax. The reality is that the current TV licence is a very unfair, regressive, flat tax. It may be loose change for someone on the Taoiseach's salary but it is a lot of money for a low-earning family. With Covid, many people are struggling to pay the charge but, instead of a bit of understanding, it was announced that TV licence inspectors are still calling to people's homes in the middle of a level 5 lockdown. One cannot have any family over unless they happen to be a television licence inspector. How can the Taoiseach justify that? Rather than charging the fee or imposing a new broadcasting charge on ordinary families, should we not be levying a charge on the massive digital media companies, including Facebook, Google and Twitter, and using the funds to invest in quality media and broadcasting?

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