Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I thank the House for the invitation to speak on the important subject of media standards. It is a subject that, I am sure, is close to the heart of not just those in the public eye but of all citizens interested in the quality of public debate and the health of our democracy. Any modern democratic society needs an active, diverse and robust media sector - it is a fundamental component of civil society. It holds a critical role in ensuring that all of those in authority are held to account, that actions are reported and interrogated, that inaction is queried, that the established order of things is questioned and that all in society can expect to have their situation reported, regardless of their position. This is what media does, or at least is supposed to do. It informs, investigates and analyses all that goes on around us. Without it, democracy or the modern state cannot function properly. It is as simple as that.

In Ireland, we have been lucky to have just such a broad and diverse media presence, characterised by some outstanding journalists and editorial staff, across a range of publications and broadcasters. In general, they have done a good job, some recent oversights, economic and otherwise, notwithstanding. The Constitution reflects the importance of the media in the lives of the citizen and the State. They are referred to in the Constitution as "organs of public opinion" and "rightful liberty of expression" is constitutionally guaranteed. That guarantee quite properly appears in the Constitution in the context of the personal rights of the citizen rather than the corporate rights of the media, because any diminution of these freedoms impacts on the right of citizens to receive and impart information and opinions.

In the State, we have an additional set of concerns about media that are worthy of note also. As a small nation, which has operated within several interlocking spheres of media influence for many years, we are subject to global market forces in a way that other countries are not, a matter complicated by the fact that we share a language with two of the world's largest media players. Irish media compete across print, broadcast and on-line spaces, with some of the world's largest and best funded media operators - and compete not just for audience share, but for advertising revenue also.

We have successfully maintained a distinctive national voice in media, but technological and economic changes are making it increasingly necessary to consider how to ensure that we have players of sufficient scale to be able to compete on an increasingly globalised playing field.

Media then is an integral part of our democracy. Any diminution in the ability and status of media to report with absolute freedom, and from a number of perspectives, is a loss to everyone in society. However, let us not delude ourselves, media freedom, objectivity or impartiality is not a given. It cannot simply be assumed to exist at all times. Critically, the maintenance of high standards in journalism, including editorial policy, is an oft maligned but still critical element of how media delivers on its functions. It is entirely in society's interest that journalists are fair, honest, scrupulous and thorough, and devoid of commercial or personal motivations. These standards can be, and sometimes are, challenged by a range of factors. These range from outright editorial decision making to an over-concentration of ownership or control, and even by attempts to curry favour with the public, right through to old fashioned resource constraints.

Stepping back for a moment, it is important to recognise that it has never been easy to balance the commercial needs of companies with the higher minded goals of serving the needs of a society or democracy. History is littered with examples of media owners who have used their companies for commercial, personal or political gain and, on a more mundane level, exercising editorial balance in a complex and rapidly changing world is not a simple matter. Regardless of how much we might like to criticise media outlets, and I am sure we all do from time to time, meeting the standards we require of journalists today while also delivering interesting and insightful content is no easy matter and balance, as ever, remains a partially subjective thing. One person's "shameless exhibition of low standards in reporting" is another person's idea of a good story.

That is not to say that journalists always abide by the rules or even the law. The type of activity that the Leveson inquiry in the UK has uncovered is shocking. We simply do not know whether or to what extent such behaviour may have been imitated in this jurisdiction. Plainly, hacking phone messages is a massive intrusion of privacy of the sort that requires some form of legislative redress.

However, despite the sometimes outraged calls from some quarters, press governance or regulation in democracies has to be approached with extreme care. In democracies, freedom of the press is often taken for granted but it has to lie at the very heart of everything we do. The political system and the media must remain as separate as possible for the good of both. That is not to say that the political system cannot legislate for defamation or fill a gap in the market for the public good, when a pressing need arises. The general rule applies, however. We remember that detailed plans for a privacy Bill were put on hold to see how self-regulation under a voluntary Press Council might succeed in policing standards of media behaviour. I believe, so far, this experiment has been successful.

The example of the print media in Ireland is an interesting one. The Press Council, an independent body drawn from and run by the print media industry, is facilitated by legislation in that members are granted some additional protections under defamation law. As a model, this seems to have worked quite well. That is not to say that it is perfect but so far it seems to have achieved a remarkable balance between allowing the press the freedom to operate while simultaneously implementing a code of practice and facilitating the extension of some additional protections under the Defamation Act. The Press Council is evaluating its own effectiveness and keeping a close eye on developments elsewhere with a view to how it might be optimised to future challenges. I had the opportunity recently of attending a seminar by the Press Council and I am sure the Government will look at its suggestions with interest.

The media is not, of course, beyond criticism. Our society has not toppled so many who exalted themselves above others in church and State to create a new and unaccountable elite. There is no doubt but that the media are voracious for information but sometimes little enough concerned with quality control. There are two trends in this.

One can probably be traced back to the glamour days that surrounded the Kennedys in the White House, the American Camelot. Camelot included not just President Kennedy, but also his wife and children. It was about glamour, fashion and even interior design. The people were presented with, voted for and greedily consumed a heady mix of youth, style and substance. Politicians everywhere and ever since have sought to replicate the mix.

From a politician's point of view, to be seen to be out and about is an inevitable part of the job. Unless we are seen in a hard hat at a construction site, using a shovel or a trowel at a foundation-laying or topping-off ceremony, in a white coat in a hi-tech laboratory or wielding a scissors at an opening, then it seems to the media-consuming public that we have not bothered to turn up for work at all.

While most countries, and most politicians, can never hope to re-create the glamour of the Kennedys, the more insidious trend is the promotion in sections of our media of a politics of anti-politics. By this I mean a contemptuous denigration and rejection of all politics. This approach feeds on understandable frustration, discontent and, nowadays, genuine fear on the part of the electorate. It operated, however, just as strongly in the boom-time years.

The practitioners, as often commentators as genuine news reporters, have as their chief weapon an unyielding cynicism. Some elements of the bar stool commentariat do not have to analyse the issues because they look down on their readers and presume they would not understand them. Luckily enough, they do not have to bother understanding the issues themselves. Perhaps it is true such commentary helps sell newspapers. However, the result is destructive both of politics and of journalism.

Combine these two trends and one has what the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and Attorney General, Michael McDowell, has described as "the over-weaning power of the media as principals in our politics". Ironically, perhaps, he raised the issue in his weekly column in the Sunday Independent.

Mr. McDowell continued:

Our media are stridently demanding to determine the political agenda. They are increasingly trivialising, distorting and denigrating our political process and discourse. While posing as impartial ringmasters, the media are cracking the whip at hapless aspirants for, and holders of, public office who increasingly oblige as performing seals, tamed lions and pirouetting elephants [God, how I miss him] - all in the utterly vain hope of assuaging the hand that holds the media whip.

I am not sure whether the former Minister's remarks are more critical of the politicians than of the media but there are members in every party who would not disagree with this warning.

Broadcasting, an area falling into my ministerial responsibilities, has its own challenges. In common with other European Union member states, we have an independent broadcasting regulator, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, which fulfils several functions in respect of the entire broadcast sector in Ireland, or at least that element of it that is based here. Not alone does this body draw up codes aimed at ensuring broadcasters keep to the standards established in legislation, it also ensures the public service broadcasters meet the targets set for them by dint of the fact that they are in receipt of public funding. Moreover, it also operates a complaints procedure with more than one high profile complaint currently in train.

Once upon a time, print and broadcast media was all there was. The world is changing, however. I said recently in a speech that anyone with a smart phone and an Internet connection could now be a journalist. Someone responded by suggesting it took more than that, saying that it took talent, training, practice and years of dedication. While I probably should have mentioned that good journalists take years to develop and train, I believe the point still stands. In fact, I probably did not go far enough. It might take talent and years of professional training to become a good journalist but today anyone with access to some readily available technology can create or capture content, edit it and publish to a global audience. In effect, anybody can become both journalist and publisher in a matter of seconds.

The transformative nature of this cannot be overstated. The barriers – not the standards - to entry for journalists, for the media industry as a whole, have been lowered spectacularly over the past decade or so. The ability to convey information or to express one's opinion on anything has been massively democratised by a complex of technologies made affordable and pervasive by mass production. Journalism, indeed the media as a whole, is being remade before our eyes.

The fact this has occurred somewhat gradually over the past decade has meant that we do not always appreciate the full import of what is happening before us. One of the central tenets of societies in developed western market economies is changing right in front of us. The model whereby a relatively small number of media organisations selling content, both retail and wholesale, to a mass market is being challenged by a monumental paradigm shift. Advertising revenue and circulation figures for newspapers have tumbled across the developed world. Radio and television are holding up for the moment. One cannot but feel their time will come too and the television market is just too attractive a target to fully escape the Internet revolution.

Moreover, consumers and citizens are faced with a broader choice of media than has ever been the case before. The Internet allows everyone to talk to everyone else all the time. In that clamour, new, original and vital voices mix with a universe of arbitrary comment, cant and bile. All of human life is there. While some existing media franchises and some dedicated online platforms continue to draw the majority of page views, clearly the ease of publication poses challenges for the maintenance of standards across the board.

In turn, and leaving aside for the moment the possible consequences of these developments for media plurality, it is important to note that to a degree standards in existing businesses have suffered too - newspapers that could previously have justified having journalists specialise in a particular area or sector can no longer afford to do so. The model of a journalist knowing their sector intimately, knowing the market and the key players, knowing the legislation and the technology, is fading rapidly. Instead, the analysis that one might have expected 20 or even ten years ago, has been replaced, all too often, with broad general pieces or even with mildly reworked press releases. Copy and paste has a great deal to answer for.

The implications for policy and Government are severe and complex, not least because of the fact that the situation is evolving quickly, and there are no easy solutions to any of these issues. Every country is struggling to deal with these challenges, and we are no different. We do, however have a good start, in that we have a number of strong institutions, such as the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and the Press Council, which are in place and are generally accepted. Moreover, we have a number of models that offer some interesting possibilities for the future. For example, while the Press Council already has members who publish exclusively online, there remains the possibility of placing this on a more formal basis using a similar dedicated self-regulation model for online news media, allowing those outlets that would welcome adherence to a code of practice to join, and leaving more ephemeral outlets to a different process.

In addition, the BAI codes are subject to ongoing review, including a draft code of fairness, objectivity and impartiality in news and current affairs, which is at present open for public consultation, and which I am sure will receive plenty of interesting and informed comment. Forthcoming developments in media mergers policy will too, I hope, be able to play a part.

Maintaining, strengthening and developing standards in media would, in the best of times, be an ongoing issue, but we are not in the best of times - far from it. Instead, as in so much else, we are considering these issues in light of almost overwhelming economic and technical changes. In light of the nature, extent and speed of these challenges, both Government and industry are faced with a profound responsibility to ensure that standards in media are preserved. The means by which that is to be achieved are far from clear, nationally or internationally, but it falls to all concerned to engage on this subject in a constructive and open manner. As I have suggested, there are options available to us, complex and difficult though they may be, and I would be happy to hear the views of Members and their suggestions on these important issues.