Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy and wish her and everyone in the House a happy St. Valentine's Day.

It is very clear that we have significant problems in RTÉ. We see a culture of poor governance when decisions were not made or not made properly. We see a culture of arrogance from some of the senior people who were in charge of that organisation. We also see a wider culture of entitlement, a belief that the revenue from the licence fee should belong to RTÉ either entirely or for the greatest part. That sense of entitlement and thinking went back to the era when we had to fly Aer Lingus and had to get our electricity from the ESB. Things have moved on a lot since then. There is much more to public service broadcasting than RTÉ.

I do not agree that there has been no accountability. A number of people have resigned from their posts. People have been called in before the Oireachtas committee and have accounted for their actions. Those who have not yet done so should in my view. I want to make that very clear. If any evidence of criminality or breaches of corporate law or company law are picked up in the audits, they will be referred to the Corporate Enforcement Authority. To date, that has not occurred but it may yet occur.

In the meantime, the Government will decide on a new means of funding public service broadcasting. That must be a method that is fair, one that says to people who use and benefit from public service broadcasting that they should bear some of the cost. That is only fair. It also needs to say very clearly that it is not all about RTÉ. It is also about other forms of public service broadcasting, including that provided by local radio and local media, which report on council meetings and court proceedings, and also more widely supporting bursaries for journalists and encouraging international correspondents, whom we do not have enough of when we look at our news in Ireland. All that is really important because if there is one thing I have seen change dramatically over the course of the past 15 or 20 years in politics, it is how people get their information and news. More so than ever, reliable sources of information are required because people simply cannot trust news and information stories they see online. Unfortunately, many people do and that is to the detriment of our democracy, not just here but also abroad.

The TV licence remains the law. The money does not all go to RTÉ; some of that goes to the public service broadcasting fund. It goes to Irish language programming, children's programming and news. Some of it helps to pay staff in RTÉ who have nothing to do with this at all and, I believe, must feel very demoralised at the moment because of all that is going on.

I believe people should obey the law and pay their taxes and charges. It would be an affront and an insult to the majority of decent law-abiding citizens who have paid their TV licence fee to grant an amnesty to those who did not. It would be profoundly unfair. If we granted an amnesty to those who did not pay, we would come under pressure to provide rebates for those who did. Has the Deputy considered that? Is that also her party's policy?

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