Michael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I call for a debate with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources on the funding of public service broadcasting. Many of us in this House met the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland yesterday to tease out how television licence funding is dispersed. Figures show clearly that 87% or €140 out of the €160 licence fee goes to RTE and TG4. A further 6.6% is allocated to the sound and vision fund, but RTE and TG4 get 50% of that too, while 6.1% goes to An Post as the collection agent. A variety of stations provide and transmit programmes that have significant public service content. We need to look at the current funding model, the very high level of evasion of the TV licence fee and the fact that viewing methods and habits are changing. We must have a discussion on how the proposed broadcasting charge will work and how the moneys raised will be dispersed.

There are some very obvious questions we must address. Are we getting good value for the €140 out of the €160 fee that goes to RTE? Why are our excellent local stations like Galway Bay FM getting no support whatsoever, despite having a very significant level of public service content? Is it acceptable that RTE, which is funded by the taxpayer, refuses to reveal the salaries of its top earners? Its interviewers are always very aggressive with politicians and heads of various companies and organisations and look for transparency and openness, yet when data on presenters who are earning multiples of what the Taoiseach earns is sought by the Committee of Public Accounts, RTE runs for cover and hides behind a two-year disclosure rule. That is not acceptable. We also need to look at whether those presenters who earn very high salaries are giving us good value. Some benchmarking is called for in that regard.