Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I must declare interests. On the one hand I receive some of my income from the national State broadcaster. On the other, those who bothered to read my declaration of interests will know that I also have a small equity holding in a Dublin-based commercial radio station. I am between two stools on this issue, having an interest in both aspects of it. However, public service broadcasting is a totally different concept from commercial broadcasting.

I rarely, if ever, disagree with my friend and colleague, Senator Quinn. His amendment seems to presuppose that commercial broadcasting stations, despite this scheme, would not provide radio and television programmes that people would listen to or watch at peak times. This seems to be the premise on which he bases his argument. If that is the case I point to the outstanding success of RTE, as the national State broadcaster, in developing its programmes for the widest possible diversity of views. The TAM ratings for any week show that the overwhelming majority of the top ten most successful programmes are home produced. They are programmes that in other countries, even on state broadcasting networks, would not be prepared, costed and implemented.

This country has a unique tradition in this regard. We seem to want to watch programmes about ourselves. My criticism is that we are not developing enough programmes which reflect our culture and the real Ireland. This is where I hope the Minister's scheme will come into play. Senator Ryan has tabled amendments which relate to cultural diversity and which we will discuss later. There appears to be an overwhelming appetite for programmes that reflect and portray us as we are. This has been proven statistically in the decades since the introduction of television and before that in the early days of radio. Programmes of this nature which the State broadcaster has produced have always been successful.