Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

It would be a matter of concern if we had reached that stage. I recall meeting the senior management of the Independent News and Media group in the mid-1990s, when I served as Minister of State with responsibility for commerce. I also met some members of the board of the group, including its then deputy chairman, the late John Meagher. He said to me that as far as the Independent group of newspapers was concerned, it was operating in a regional market. The implication of his remarks was that the group's newspapers were competing with the tabloids that were coming through at the time, which would inevitably lead to the dumbing down of standards. Members of the House will have their own views on what has transpired in the subsequent 15 years. As regards the questions raised by several Senators about public service broadcasting and the television licence and all that kind of thing, the notion of replacing the TV licence, the notion of scrapping it and moving to a public service broadcasting charge, is motivated principally by the convergence of technologies which is happening before our eyes. I presume that like myself, many Members of this House have observed the extent to which the next generation are not buying newspapers or taking their information from the print media but rather from their tablet or their iPhone or anywhere there is a connection to the Internet. This is happening, whether or not we want to admit it. Unlike the little boy we cannot put our fingers into the dyke because this is what is happening before our eyes.

The second reason is the extent of evasion which is significant at approximately €30 million from the collection of the licence fee and this is a consideration. Every time I say this it is misreported in some areas but this is not a new charge; it replaces the existing charge. Despite all the complaints I receive about the TV licence I never receive a complaint about the subscription to Sky or UPC or whatever, to see, for example, whether Harry Redknapp won his last match against Sunderland. I get a variety of very colourful complaints about RTE. Senator Paul Coghlan raised the plight of the independent broadcasters. I agree entirely with him that they play a very important role in provincial Ireland and in particular, his own station, Radio Kerry, the Kingdom radio, being an especially good example, including as it does the broadcasting of public service content. However, the idea behind the TV licence was to foster and support public service broadcasting. It is already top-sliced in a number of ways. For instance, €10 million is allocated by law to TG4 and a further 7% of the proceeds go to the Sound and Vision fund, the purpose of which is to enable independent producers to apply to that fund for programme resources.