Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is very good. People have put that on the agenda and as far as I am concerned it is very much on the agenda. That is the idea for, as it were, seeing if there are ways the overhead could be reduced.

The other option is whether there are ways of channelling more money to the commercial broadcasters. This is where we get to the proposal or argument that more of the licence fee should go to the local radio stations. There is a conceptual problem here and a definitional one in respect of public service broadcasting and what it constitutes. We have been arguing about this for decades. What constitutes public service broadcasting? Can one come up with a definitive statement of what public service broadcasting is? The responsibilities of RTE in the context of its public service remit are set out in the Act. Can an individual programme, be it a sports, music or current affairs programme, be definitively categorised as either public service or not public service?

Many programmes are both. Many programmes have a commercial value. They can attract advertising because people want to listen to them and they are popular, so advertisers will advertise in them. They are commercial propositions. They are also fulfilling a public service remit. Sport is a perfect example. All of us would regard the coverage of sport as a public service, but sport is also where some of the biggest pots of money can be made in the commercial sector through the transmission of sports events.One could not say that a sporting event is either one or the other, or at least it would be very difficult to do that, but it would require one to do that because one would have to analyse each and every programme, or each and every strand of programming on each and every station, and try to ascertain how much public service broadcasting had been done and on that basis work out each company's entitlement to the licence fee. At a very basic level, it would be extremely difficult to do. One could ask why we have not done that historically or what approach has been taken previously. The approach that has been taken is not to spread the licence fee funding so thinly around the place and across all the players in the country that it might end up not counting for very much at all because it would be so dissipated. Historically, the licence fee has been regarded as existing to fund the public service broadcaster, namely, RTE and TG4. Historically, that is the decision that has been made, not by me, but that has been the approach taken by all Governments. The view is that what one needs to do is have a broadcaster with sufficient critical mass and independence to ensure that a menu, as it were, of public service programming, be it orchestras, as one speaker indicated, or sports would serve all of the audiences, not just audiences from whom a commercial return could easily be derived. The public service broadcaster has a responsibility. That is reflected in all the audiovisual directives in Europe. The BBC is the classic public service broadcaster. The remit is to serve all of the audiences, not just those that one can commercialise quickly. That has been the philosophy over the years. If we want to change it, we must be very careful about how we do so and about whether we can really define this or that programme on this or that station as having public service merit and is, therefore, deserving of a subsidy from the licence fee. That is the issue.

I agree that we must reduce the evasion rate. I have proposals which I will bring forward in that respect. Senator Mulcahy made some very strong and interesting points and I have touched on one or two of them already. To remove the licence fee would constitute an enormous change. It would be an immense change to the basis of our broadcasting regime. It would be a mistake because what we want is strong public service broadcasting side by side with, as another speaker - perhaps Senator Mooney - said, a thriving commercial sector. We want both. We must get away from the idea that it is one or the other, that it is a zero sum. It is not. We must maintain the objective of promoting both and trying to ensure that both thrive.

Senator Whelan set out the basis for why public service broadcasting has been funded and should continue to be funded. As he rightly said, that does not mean RTE should be immune from criticism or accountability. Some have criticised the Act as being overly onerous and detailed, but it contains the basis for very rigorous scrutiny of the public service broadcasters. The reason we have the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, and the reason we must fund the regulator is because there are so many elements to the accountability we require of the public service broadcasters. The BAI produces reports every year which are laid before the Oireachtas. The five-yearly report of a couple of years ago led to the NewERA report. I then had the Indecon report. There are constant reports and there has been considerable scrutiny of RTE for many years, in particular on the financial side in recent years.

It is not my role to trespass into the area of programming, and I will not do so, other than to say there is a robust regime in place in respect of complaints and in respect of complaints being brought to the compliance committee of the BAI. We know that complaints are brought because we periodically hear the BAI reporting on those complaints. Speakers are correct in saying that RTE is not and cannot be immune to criticism. It must be prepared to take criticism. I agree with the Senator in that regard.

I have much sympathy for what Senator Whelan said about Oireachtas TV and Saorview, and others raised the point as well. There is a provision in section 130 of the Act which provides for the possibility of ministerial intervention. However, at the same time, there is a recent decision of ComReg in respect of regulating those kinds of tariffs under a European directive. There is a legal question as to the relationship between my power under the Act and that of ComReg to regulate the tariffs. I have been asked to address the issue and to intervene. I hope we will be able to resolve the matter quickly. We are taking legal advice as to whether the powers I have under the Act override the provisions that now arise in respect of the European directive or vice versa. Once we have that advice, we will be able to respond to the Senator and to the Ceann Comhairle of the other House. That is the position in relation to Saorview.

Senator Ó Domhnaill also raised the philosophical question of whether it is right that one station, RTE, should be the recipient or beneficiary of the licence fee. That is exactly the point we are debating here. That has been the basis of our funding regime for public service broadcasting for a considerable period and if we want to change it, we must be very clear about what we want to replace it with and how or on what basis we would seek to divide up such scarce funding that comes from the licence fee. I do not hear anybody arguing for an increase in the licence fee. I was listening carefully and nobody mentioned that.