Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that it is happening, but it should happen this week to give the Dáil and the media committee a chance to debate the proposal.

Sinn Féin has called on the Government to scrap the television licence, as the Minister will be aware, and to fund RTÉ and other broadcast services directly because the TV licence is outdated and regressive. It is wrong that people are dragged through the courts for not paying for a TV licence when no one was held accountable for the misuse of public money in RTÉ. There is no excuse for the Government not to take action or not to treat this as urgent. When we asked questions last week, we heard again that more and more people are not paying for their TV licences. The gap in funding in RTÉ is a serious matter and we cannot provide more funding without having the accountability and transparency that would be provided by RTÉ coming under the remit of the State auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General.

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