Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We need a public service broadcaster. When all is said and done, whatever is going to become of it, we absolutely need that.

What I want to remember today, though, is the absolute obscenity of this fact. I am not going to name anyone, a Cheann Comhairle, because that is not the right thing to do. When people are not here to defend themselves, they should not be named. I will give an example, however. When one presenter on a radio programme on RTÉ is able to earn more money than the Taoiseach and Tánaiste put together, there is something radically wrong. That a person can go on the radio every day and tell the rest of us how wrong we all are and how right he is about everything and get paid more than the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to do so, and say he is defending the ordinary man and Mr. Joe Public, is absolute nonsense.

It cannot be tolerated any longer and I want to highlight that.

I will highlight an anomaly. I come from County Kerry. The most important thing we have in Kerry is Radio Kerry. I want to talk about a very dear friend of all of ours, the late Senator Paul Coghlan. I remember him very fondly here this evening. I know we will do it properly some other time. He had the foresight, with his business acumen, to be one of the founding fathers of Radio Kerry. Even though we do not always agree, like every local radio station, I want to thank people like Jerry O'Sullivan for the morning programme, Deirdre Walsh, Andrew and Elaine, and the great Dermot Moriarty who I had playing "Sounds Country" in my office before I came here. If he keeps going any longer, he will hit his golden jubilee, because he has been with Radio Kerry for over 30 years.

I want to think of those people and the service they provide. What are they paid? They are not subsidised. They have to try to manage themselves in the best way they can. They are up against it all the time. I want to say to Fiona Stack, the general manager, that I as a public representative from Kerry deeply appreciate Radio Kerry, whether it is the deaths that come on, the good news or the bad news. There are people who time their day around Radio Kerry in their homes, on their farms and in their machines, or whatever else they are doing. This waste has to stop.

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