Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

While I welcome the section, I have a few brief questions which return us to the core of our earlier dialogue. A close reading of the section would lead one to conclude that the response to the criteria laid down in the Bill will overwhelmingly emanate from the community and non-commercial sector. In a sense, this is a pity. While I do not wish to rehearse the argument, like my colleague, Senator Quinn, I cannot envisage commercial radio broadcasters producing peak time programmes based on Irish cultural heritage and experience, the Irish language and the diversity of Irish culture and heritage. I say this with great sadness and I wish the Minister could introduce some form of legislative framework which would force some operators to produce programmes of this nature. They will not do this, however, because having opened the gate, the horse has bolted and it will be difficult to get it back into the field again. In other words, the programming formats have been laid down by many of the commercial operators. Incidentally, I am glad the Minister and Senators made a distinction between rural and local broadcasters and those based in the greater Dublin area, which are my bugbear.

Once the scheme is in operation, does the Minister envisage introducing any directives or a policy framework to encourage the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland proactively to go after obsessively commercial radio stations which play wall to wall music and dress up the news and current affairs they are legally obliged to provide in all sorts of abstract programming? I say this partly with tongue in cheek because some local broadcasters do this extremely well. On the other hand, one has to ask how broadcasters in Dublin have been able to get away with this practice for so long.