Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House. I also welcome the Bill, which presents us with an important opportunity, not only to reflect on the structures and mechanisms proposed but also to reflect on the importance of broadcasting in our society, the role media play in our society and how, as legislators, we should seek to influence things for the better using our broadcasting structures. We are approaching the 50th anniversary of the establishment of RTE television and I often think television exploded into the lives of people. We could not have foreseen this as a community. The then President, Éamon de Valera, warned about certain dangers on the advent of RTE but society did not foresee the revolutionary impact television would have on people's lives, most of it for the better. However, it also presented challenges.

Of all the inventions that emerged in human experience over the past century of tremendous progress, television was probably the one about which we were the least educated. Media education programmes are provided by schools and so on nowadays but people were never well educated about how to be discerning consumers of media products and families are becoming increasingly aware of this issue. Parents comment on the challenges they face inculcating good values in their children when they are competing with messages in the marketplace, whether that is the school yard or the field of entertainment and culture. Television is one of prime bearers of the message from the entertainment industry into our lives and we should consider this.

We need to take a decision on another issue. Are we, as politicians and legislators, only trying to address people's needs in terms of a bare understanding of them as consumers or are we will try to give leadership in shaping society and the role media play in it? Political leaders, politicians and policy makers are scared stiff of being seen as overly paternalistic in seeking to shape our cultural environment, of which the media are a significant element, and they are also scared of the media. The media are a tremendously powerful force in our society, although largely a force for good, but much of their power is unseen. I was party to the debate on the Defamation Bill 2006. The then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, in bringing the legislation forward, was philosophically opposed to the emergence of a scenario where media would have greater protections against defamation actions but nonetheless afforded such protections to them and I could not but concur with the folk wisdom that the media are a more powerful and influential lobby with Government than the consumer. I have many conversations with politicians and there can be an element of special pleading on our part when we give out about the media, which is usually related to the last occasion on which we were on the receiving end of harsher than justified treatment by the media.

Accountability, visibility and transparency are issues where power is involved. The reason I raise this is to encourage Members to adapt their thinking to shaping the media environment without fear or favour and very much with an eye to the common good. I have every confidence in the Minister. In addition to being a family man he is also a very considerate and thoughtful person and I have no doubt that he has an eye very much on the common good as he brings forward this legislation. I would encourage him not merely to think of the common good in terms of an idea of the consumer — I am not suggesting he is doing so — but rather in terms of the community.

When we had the debate yesterday about the health services and in many debates about health and education, particularly when we are talking about the needs of the more vulnerable members in our society, we heard and increasingly hear calls for joined-up government and interdepartmental delivery. We often hear the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs praised because it has access to the work of different Departments and is able, hopefully, to influence legislation so that the needs of children and youth are taken into account.

I hope that this would extend also into the field of all that pertains to regulation regarding the broadcast and print media. We are legislating not just for the consumer interest; we are legislating for the common good. That must be our philosophical starting point, which will require leadership and us standing up to vested interests in some cases. It will require us to remember that far from it being paternalistic of us as elected representatives with a mandate to try and shape this environment to seek to establish clear boundaries that will govern the way the media does what it does in respect of issues like fairness, balance, taste, decency and invasion of privacy, it is paternalistic of the industry to say, "Leave it to us. We are the best guarantors".

I know that I am only speaking on Second Stage and reserve the right to consider these matters further as I prepare my amendments. However, I sense a hands-off approach in certain parts of this legislation that mirrors what happened with the Defamation Bill. I know that it is possible for the Broadcasting Complaints Committee to review matters and to have matters appealed to them. However, I know that in the first instance, broadcasters are the ones who are charged with dealing with complaints.

It should be said that the history of accountability among Irish broadcasters has not been good. There has been a tendency to gloss over legitimate complaints from relatively powerless members of society. There is a tendency for certain mindsets which perhaps predominate in the media to be reflected in the way that news and current affairs are treated. It is no secret that the Broadcasting Complaints Committee, which this Bill in a way supplants through the new broadcasting authority of Ireland, has been all gums and no teeth. There has not been a proper sense of accountability. We all know what has happened where people have had complaints upheld. It has been buried somewhere. There has been a bit of an improvement in recent times where there would occasionally be a short written statement before a "Prime Time" documentary. If we really value people's reputations and the obligation of the media, especially the public service media, to have considerable and rigorous fairness in the production and dissemination of material, we will have strong penalties where that falls down.

While one part of me commends what the Minister said about the fines mechanism being merely a light regulatory touch, it should not be too light. We should not just talk about fining people or organisations when they carry too much advertising within an hour or so. There are other ways to damage the public interest and, very often, they happen when issues or people's reputations are being dealt with.

I remember how, in the wake of the divorce referendum in 1995, the then director general of RTE, Bob Collins, said that if somebody was to come down from Mars and observe the coverage of the divorce referendum, they would never think the country was as divided as it was on that issue. I am very much speaking from memory so I apologise to all the parties concerned if I in any way misrepresent what was said. What does Mr. Collins's statement say about the way our media has operated? Has that situation improved in the past 13 years or since John Waters spoke about the discordant drum in his book "Jiving at the Crossroads" when he spoke about the Dublin 4 media dictating to the people down the country whom it despised without really understanding their values? Do we, as legislators, have sufficient understanding and respect for the fact that there is to be proper treatment of the diversity of viewpoints in our society?

We all speak about the issues on which we are most expert. I am the first to put up my hand and say that there are issues I probably watch more closely than other people. I welcome other people's voices on this matter. I was very disappointed recently and have been repeatedly disappointed by media coverage of issues like stem cell research. Perhaps it is wrong to pick out examples but since they are public service broadcasters, I will give myself the liberty to do so. Very often, emotive arguments are made in favour of research that would be destructive of human embryos. That tends to get balanced against the so-called harsh, intellectually rigorous, principled position. It is done very subtly. Do we have a mechanism that can catch that kind of thing, respect people who make complaints about that kind of thing and take action to ensure it does not happen again? It also happened in respect of the same-sex marriage debate recently on RTE's watch. The Small Firms Association, the farmers or other people who have expertise in other areas might be able to tell one the same thing.

Will we move in this Bill towards a situation where we have more teeth and less gums when it comes to the adjudication on legitimate complaints? I am not talking about the complaints of cranks but about complaints that can stand up on the evidence. Will we have mechanisms that will allow the Broadcasting Complaints Committee not just to look at the offending broadcast in question but a series of broadcasts, which I believe the Minister suggested, not only in terms of whether they have satisfied the requirement of balance but also because the series of broadcasts might establish the clear condemnation that there has not been balance over a period of time?

There are some highly paid celebrity broadcasters and media people in this country. I do not begrudge them; they are highly talented people. Sometimes they go too far in their shows, ratings being all-important, and engage in a manipulative kind of current affairs setting. Can we look at that not because we are paternalistic but because we have the public interest at heart? They are the ones who are being paternalistic and we are allowing them to be paternalistic if we do not challenge them.

Every politician worries about being seen to moralise but this is not about moralising. This is about an authentic search for where the common good lies and a determination to try to pursue the bringing about of the common good. That is my philosophical overview of the situation. In saying what I have said, I am in no way suggesting that these issues are not being or will not be taken on board. I am reminded of the first director general of the BBC, Lord Reith, whose dictum that the media should be there to educate, to inform and to entertain. That dictum still persists in the BBC's mission statement. Our media does very well on the entertainment front and somewhat well on the information front. The educational function is there but perhaps the three are not in perfect harmony as things stand, which is something to which we should have regard.

In respect of the common good and joined-up thinking, a lot of people in this society are worried about the fragmentation of things and individualism. I attended an excellent presentation this morning from Headstrong, an organisation that is dedicated to the promotion of positive mental health experience among young people in our country. One of things that clearly emerges from any of these kinds of talks one attends is the need to restore community among people. Even at our meeting, speakers spoke about the importance of people having someone to talk to.

That is offset by the fact that many people are extremely busy and are retreating into their own life experiences. It is our job to ensure our media does not exacerbate that problem but deals with it by promoting a communitarian vision in society and by ensuring that material that is exploitative, abusive or tends towards individualism is not only discouraged but, where appropriate, punished.

I welcome the provisions in section 8 relating to the procedures for the appointment of the membership of the BAI and its statutory committees. I commend the Minister on providing that the joint Oireachtas committee will have a role here, which is very innovative. I wonder if it might be appropriate to ensure that the Oireachtas committee has as direct a role in the appointment of the two committees. It will have an indirect role, in so far as the BAI will be involved in the appointment of the two committees. Could we take it even further, now that the toe has been dipped into the water? I hope it will not be just a case of whispered consultation among members of the committee but that there will be some mechanism for hearings to take place and for interested parties who believe they have something to offer to be heard by the committee. Obviously, it cannot be too self selecting but I hope there will be some way in which the committee will hear possible contenders before making its recommendations to the Minister. That will make it more likely that the recommendation will be heard and heeded.

I note provisions relating to gender in more than one place in the Bill. I know the Minister is under obligation here and the programme for Government refers to achieving a minimum of 40% representation of women on State boards. While we should have policy on these matters that is strongly oriented towards gender inclusion, I am opposed to quotas. I am opposed to such a strict laying down of the law because it is not necessarily meritocratic. While I would want the legislation to refer to the importance of gender inclusion, I would warn against a situation where the only type of inclusivity we think of is gender. That is the problem with a gender quota — it forgets that there are other interests in society. It also, perhaps, in an indirect way perpetuates a division between men and women. That is a personal view but in expressing it I am in no way suggesting that careful regard should not be paid to the need for gender inclusivity in choosing the boards of TG4, RTE, the BAI and so forth.

I wish to focus on the Minister's comments regarding section 42, which allows for the children's advertising code to specifically prohibit advertising for foodstuffs aimed at children. I know the Minister is sincere about that but I did not come down on the last cloud either and I know it is an attention grabber. If we are going to be so specific, should we not be also equally specific about alcohol? Can this Bill do something more than merely enable strong regulations that might see us prohibit, over time, the advertising of alcohol? Do we really need alcohol advertising? When one considers the amounts of money that alcohol companies spend on advertising, it is clear it is doing some good from their point of view. Although the code requires, for example, that alcohol advertising should not be associated with sporting or sexual success, the reality is that alcohol advertising is extremely manipulative. The day is coming when we should not see such advertising on our television screens. I ask the Minister to give equal attention to that issue.

I ask the Minister to give attention to things such as tarot cards, which target and exploit, not just financially, but emotionally and play on the vulnerabilities of people who wish to know about their future. We could take a laissez-faire view of this and say if they are fools enough to buy these services, then so be it but that should not be our approach. There is an element of protection called for here. I would also say the same in the context of human trafficking. We must ask what we can do in our broadcasting legislation to ensure that any broadcaster operating in this country does not carry advertisements of an exploitative nature, particularly where women and sexuality are concerned. That has been a feature of our television diet in recent years, although not on RTE. That is the kind of public interest consideration the Bill should not overlook.

There are other issues which I could raise with more time but I have raised the salient ones for now. I thank the Minister for introducing the Bill and I am glad that it has been initiated in the Seanad. I hope that is a hint that there will be more than mere discussion of the various amendments that are tabled. I trust that serious issues will be dealt with in the course of the debate on the amendments and I look forward to further discussion. I also hope the Minister will take the Bill on Committee Stage.