Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Cuffe, who has replaced the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. This is a very interesting debate. Various speakers made some intriguing comments. Senator Harris stated that he worked for RTE for 25 years. That is a long period in which to have worked in the media. The change in those 25 years has been extraordinary. When Senator Harris began working in RTE, there were not that many local radio or television stations and the Internet did not exist. The position has changed dramatically in the interim. For example, if I travel to Dubai or Australia, I can listen to my local radio station, Galway Bay FM, via the Internet.

The Internet will revolutionise broadcast media. As matters stand, we have traditional television and radio stations and also the new local radio stations. It is now possible to access radio stations from countries across the world and in various languages via the Internet. It is also increasingly possible, both legally and illegally, to watch television programmes from across the world on the Internet. It is difficult to see how people can be prevented from watching illegal television streams which can be broadcast over the Internet to any country because it is difficult to trace from where they are being broadcast most of the time.

There will be enormous change. Senator O'Reilly mentioned local radio stations and said the joint Oireachtas committee had helped to alleviate the difficulties created by the industry having to fund the BAI. The authority's budget has been reduced from €7.6 million to €5.635 million. Like many Senators, I was lobbied by various radio stations regarding the problems they were experiencing and when I brought their concerns to the attention of the Minister, he was well ahead of the game. He was well aware of the difficulties and proactive in alleviating them. However, the greatest problem facing us is presented by the funding of quality broadcasting because traditionally this has been done through advertising and the television licence fee, which income is also used to fund radio services.

Internet advertising is very much targeted at people with particular profiles, including through Facebook and Google, as they listen to or watch the many channels into which they can tune on-line. Advertising will change, but the question is where the revenue will go. For example, will RTE be able to continue to fund public service broadcasting because there will be huge competition from international sources which have huge funds compared to Irish broadcasters? I question whether indigenous broadcasting services can survive in the future or whether we will be able to easily fund them. We need to think about this because, whether we like them, changes are on the way.

It is vital that indigenous broadcasting continues. Local radio stations have flourished because they provide information on local people and local news. If they did not, we would have to listen to homogenised news items from across the world which would be negative from a cultural point of view. It is important to have local traditions. The Irish language is important. In that regard, it is positive that we have Irish language broadcast media, but they are subsidised and I wonder to what extent they will be able to keep going in budgetary terms into the future.

The BAI is crucial. It is an amalgamation of two organisations - the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. When broadcasting complaints are mentioned, I think back to a time when ladies somewhere in the State with a Catholic view on issues would make complaints about sexuality on television. Many types of complaints can be made about broadcasting which has a major influence on the changes we are experiencing in society. We have become a multicultural society and have to be careful about the message sent through indigenous broadcast media.

The BAI's children's advertising code is positive. It refers to not condoning greed, violence or aggression, the seven deadly sins and generally not broadcasting to children in advertising things that are unreasonable. It also considers issues such as a balanced diet and nutrition and not broadcasting ridiculous messages that great things will happen if one uses certain products. We must be careful in this regard and because such advertising spiralled out of control in other countries. Young people spend many hours sitting in front of the television, computers and video games. Members of the House are of a certain age group and younger people have a different view of what the media are all about. Everything is changing rapidly. I refer to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. If I had uttered the word "twitter" a few years ago or said "I tweeted this or that", people would have said I was a lunatic. However, this has become common parlance and Members refer to Twitter and tweets on a regular basis. President Barack Obama's political campaign very much involved Facebook which highlights that politics is hugely influenced not only by broadcast and print media but also by the Internet.