Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I fully endorse that.

I welcome the Minister. He and I had an exchange of views earlier on this topic under the mechanism for reviewing his Department's performance at the Joint Committee on Transport, Communications and Natural Resources and I was grateful to him for the clarification he brought to a number of issues. However, I would like to put a number of them on the record in this House.

I applaud and welcome his reiteration of his support for the concept of public service broadcasting. I am a firm supporter of it. People might say, "He would, would he not?" because I spent most of my broadcasting career in RTE but I had the honour of representing the country as a member of the Council of Europe during which time I acted as a rapporteur in producing a report on public service broadcasting across Europe. It brought home to me the challenges facing public service broadcasting, which the Minister has outlined, and also the threats to it across the Continent, particularly from the commercial sector. I am totally convinced that if there was a free market in broadcasting, there would be a significant dumbing down. Italy is a perfect example of that under Mr. Berlusconi. Radio and television has been dumbed down to such an extraordinary extent that people have no knowledge of public service issues or current affairs.

I welcome that the Minister has continued the proud tradition of his Department in supporting public service broadcasting. I acknowledge that he would do so on an ideological basis apart from the fact that he also spent time in the public service broadcasting sector. He has a valuable insight into how it works. For those who criticise RTE, one only has to consider the popularity of the organisation's programme every year. Nine out of the top ten programmes annually in terms of audience share are broadcast by RTE. They relate not only to sport but are spread across the gamut of television programming.

The Minister has certainly opened a debate on how we go forward in this regard and the focus in this political arena, in both Houses, is on RTE's licence fee. There are people in my party and in Fine Gael who would like RTE to be emasculated and they believe it would be in the wider public interest to do that. I do not share that view. RTE should be protected but not cosseted. As the Minister said earlier, management has embarked on a severe cost cutting exercise over the past five or six years. I was a victim of that in that I was one of the foot soldiers in RTE doing programmes on a freelance basis. I was never a member of staff and I operated at freelance rates, which were reduced so drastically and radically that I reached a point that I did not think it was financially worthwhile for me to be doing the programme anymore, when I took tax into consideration. I am aware at ground level of the impact of the cost cutting. Hopefully, the organisation has reached a new dawn and is moving forward. It will, hopefully, have a trading surplus soon. Any diminution of the income it receives from the television licence would be a challenge for RTE and management would resist this.

However, I am also a firm supporter of local radio and I recognise its value. The Minister stated: "In terms of radio, station owners sought and accepted licences on clear terms...". In other words, this is the argument that has been used since 1990. They knew what they were getting into, and now they are coming crying to Government looking for money as commercial operators when they knew what the playing field was from day one. They were going into a commercial environment and it was going to be sink or swim. I am sure the Minster will agree, however, that the radio landscape has changed dramatically since 1990 and the Broadcasting Act, which introduced local radio. It has changed in such a dramatic fashion that not only is there a number of commercial broadcasting stations but, as a result of the setting up of the BAI, there are specific music interest stations throughout the country as well as community-type stations, short-term stations and so on. A constant throughout that, particularly in rural Ireland, is the enormous bond generated by local radio between the listener and the local station. That bond has grown, strangely enough not because of the fact they are playing music but because they are reflecting the community in which they are broadcasting.That bond is then exemplified by the highest listening audiences given to mid-morning programmes, on which the Minister in his capacity as Minister and a politician would have appeared around the country and continues to do so. That is the 9 a.m. to 12 noon slot. There is a Gay Byrne in every local authority area and they are all very good people. A great deal of research goes into those programmes and most importantly there is engagement between the listener and the station so that they feel they own the station.

That is the context in which I am putting forward the view that the IBI has put forward about them continuing to provide the type of programming we are discussing, which is news, current affairs and sport which, as the Minister knows from his time as producer, is very labour intensive. To put it in simple terms, any one of us here could walk into a radio station with a bunch of CDs under our arm and spend two hours playing music. There is no cost other than the cost of the transmission. All one is doing is chatting and playing music. However, running a story or finding out about a local issue requires drilling down to the detail in order to convey to the listener what the story is about. That requires manpower, skill and expertise.

Therefore I believe the IBI is justified in suggesting that the Government should acknowledge that fact. They do so in the context of the broadcasting levy proving to be a very heavy financial burden on them. I declare an interest in that I present a programme on Ocean FM in the north west. I have been told that the cost of the levy to Ocean FM is €30,000 a year. At local radio pay rates that would employ one if not two extra people, who would almost certainly be used in a research capacity rather than an on-air capacity in order to expand the news or sports service the radio station is providing. The single biggest source of advertising comes from the 9 a.m. to 12 noon slot. That is where the money is generally being generated by local stations because they have such high audience figures.

I believe the Minister quoted figures from surveys indicating that 85% to 95% are listening to local radio. Dublin is a different kettle of fish. While this had nothing to do with the Minister, at the time I could see it. The licences given for Dublin stations were licences to print money because they are primarily and almost exclusively music-driven stations, and the Dublin market has now become very competitive. I do not know what can be done about it.

Dublin Deputies and Senators look with envy on the rest of us down the country as we can get our points of view on local issues across on local radio. However, there is no comparable station in Dublin that represents Dublin interests. I do not know how the BAI can address that; it is such a vast conglomerate. At the same time it is a flaw in the entire radio landscape that there is not what might be termed a "local" radio station in Dublin to which Dubliners can relate on current affairs issues. That is no reflection on the existing stations. God bless them and good luck to them; they are making money under the terms of their licences.

I support the IBI's suggestion and ask for the Minister's response. I know he will be very protective of the licence fee and any dilution of it. The IBI has suggested that the broadcasting levy be absorbed by the licence fee, which it believes could be cost neutral. An Post's experience to date of collecting the licence fee raises serious questions about its efficiency. At this morning's committee meeting some of my colleagues pooh-poohed the notion of any dilution of An Post's involvement. I do not suggest for one moment that the business should be taken away from An Post. Every day on television and radio we hear very clever and imaginative An Post advertisements exhorting people to get a television licence and predicting the direst circumstances if they do not, and yet we have a 20% evasion rate which equates to approximately €30 million per year. In the UK the equivalent evasion rate is only 5% and I understand a private company is involved.

I am not suggesting that this should be taken away from An Post. I believe the Minister has indicated he would like to have discussions with An Post as to how it can improve the rate. There must be some logical reason for such a high evasion. If that evasion rate could be reduced even by 5%, it would provide the financial flexibility to fund the local radio network specifically in the areas of news, current affairs and sport.

There should be a parallel concept to the sound and vision concept. The Minister said that 7% of the net licence fee under sound and vision funded 477 projects worth over €3.6 million from commercial radio stations. My information is that most of that money is going to the independent production sector rather than to local radio. Local radio has found it extremely difficult to come up with the criteria necessary to provide the type of programming under sound and vision and therefore it has been taken over to a large extent on the one hand by RTE which is able to access the fund and the resources it has, and on the other hand by the independent sector, which should be flourishing because it is creative and entrepreneurial. The Minister should make it a more level playing field by promoting the concept that local radio has changed to such a dramatic degree that in order for it to be maintained at its current level in news, current affairs and sport, radio stations now desperately need some sort of financial injection in order in some cases for some of them to survive.

People will point out that no radio station has given up its licence voluntarily. However, everybody in the entrepreneurial world lives in hope. The last thing somebody involved in business wants to do is to go bankrupt so they will continue to try to keep going. However, they are cutting costs to such a degree that they are leaving nearly a skeleton staff operating in the key areas of news and current affairs. It is also encouraging local radio owners to dumb down or take out of the schedule news, current affairs and sports coverage in order to put in the cheaper form of broadcasting which is playing music.

I am concerned that by putting in the 20% the original creators of the broadcasting landscape could find increasingly owners of radio stations saying, "We can't do it anymore. Change the 20%." However, they are not saying that, they are asking for a bit of a leg-up and it can be done by making it cost neutral in the budget if the evasion rate can be reduced and we can use some of the money found. Not only would local radio benefit from this, but RTE would also benefit and the entire country would benefit.

I could go on. I am grateful for your indulgence, a Chathaoirligh. I thank the Minister. I know his heart is in the right place. I know he wants to get the right balance between the national broadcasters and the local broadcasters. I wish him well in that regard.