Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this serious debate. It is hugely important that we, in the Oireachtas and in society, ensure there is proper public service broadcasting into the future.

I was in the US recently and there was wall-to-wall coverage on television of one or the other agenda. The corrosiveness of both sides was evident in a democracy. Public service broadcasting is a pillar of democracy and it is crucially important that the pillar society is built upon has the trust of the Oireachtas and the public in general. It has been shattered in recent weeks and we must go about rebuilding it.

Many of the contributions to today's debate have been about why, where, the invoices and so forth. However, if we take it in an overall context, RTÉ was set up over the decades and was seen as a trusted partner in Irish society. That trust has been eroded. Genuine law-abiding people are saying to me on a daily basis in the past week or ten days that they will no longer pay the television licence fee. That is worrying. The trust in it is eroded. With that trust, RTÉ developed a role over the years and became a powerful organisation with a powerful trust in society.

Earlier this year there were debates and commentary by Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas and others about GAAGO and having put our national games beyond a paywall. We should have seized that moment to say something was fundamentally wrong. It is no longer for the betterment of Irish society or of the general public. The whole development of GAAGO and putting our national games beyond the reach of ordinary citizens who already pay for their television licences showed me, already a number of weeks ago, that something was fundamentally wrong. It was never so clear that something was fundamentally wrong. We can debate about the personalities who were involved on both sides, from RTÉ and the GAAGO panel. Something was fundamentally wrong because RTÉ was set up as a broadcaster to ensure all citizens, no matter their level of income or what part of the island they lived in, had access to programmes and to their national games. That was the part of the contract. On one side was the trust of the Irish people and the delivery of services by RTÉ was on the other.

People have said to me continuously in recent days that never again will they watch. It is damaging to everybody in society that our national broadcaster has had its reputation tarnished in such a way. Debates about the stars and the money being paid to them went on for many years. There was disquiet about it but the idea that any politician should question RTÉ's role or authority, or ask whether it was right or wrong to do something, was shunned. A fear built up that people should not question RTÉ because it is too powerful or because we believed it was doing the right thing. The opposite has now been shown to be the case. How are we going to go back and ensure Irish society has a basic trust in RTÉ? That is an enormous task for the Government and the Minister. It is an issue that is completely outside the Government's making but it is now down to the Government and the Minister. I welcome the initiative and the terms and conditions of the review. However, that must be built upon. It must be shown that we are working. The only way to do that is by having proper accountability through the Committee of Public Accounts or through the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. I compliment my colleagues from the Dáil and Seanad who sit on those committees. They did extremely good work last week, in particular, and showed the benefit of Oireachtas committees in ensuring we get to the right source of information.

To put matters in a nutshell, RTÉ, as a basic public service broadcaster, is needed in Irish society. It is fundamental that we have a properly functioning public service broadcaster but not one that believes it is so powerful that it is beyond question or reproach. We have seen what that attitude has done in other institutions around the State in decades past. RTÉ must be accountable in the same way everyone in this House is accountable. If anything showed the contempt that RTÉ had for the Irish people over the last while, it was GAAGO. The national game was put beyond the reach of people in places where there is not access to broadband or anything else. People have supported the national broadcaster and games. That issue showed the contempt RTÉ has for the ordinary citizen. With the drip-feeding of information over the past week, nothing has changed my mind about that contempt. In fact, my view has been copper-fastened. We must ensure that in as short a time as possible after the review is complete, we start rebuilding. Never again can RTÉ become so powerful that it cannot be questioned by the Oireachtas or by the public in general.

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