Tony Mulcahy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and I welcome today's debate on public service broadcasting, its cost to the taxpayer, and its fairness and balance to those who provide broadcasting services to our citizens throughout Ireland.

What value for money are we, the citizens, getting from the licence fee imposed on us? On average €220 million is collected. In the main, €180 million goes to RTE and TG4, providing approximately 50% of their required operational funding. Our national broadcaster spends €11 million on its orchestra. We talk about transparency. It has recently confirmed, without naming the individuals, that two of its presenters are paid between €400,000 and €500,000 a year. Two more are paid between €200,000 and €300,000 a year. Seven contractors are paid between €150,000 and €200,000 a year and five RTE staff members are paid between €200,000 and €250,000 a year, with most of those at the higher end of the scale. It is wrong for RTE to withhold information on who is getting what taxpayers' money. RTE is a commercial radio and television station. From now on, its State-collected funding must be reduced and ultimately at some stage discontinued.

We no longer live in a world that can be State subsidised. I fully respect the Minister's views, but we must move away from State subsidies in all our State-subsidised bodies, including RTE.Currently, our local radio stations, in the main, contribute a 2% levy on all their turnover. This levy should be abolished or, at the very least, reduced. The local radio stations are an integral part of our pubic service network. If one were to check the JNLR figures, our local radio stations would have a greater listenership than our national broadcaster and my own Clare FM would be pretty high up on that one. There is an onus on us as legislators to support our local radio stations, if we are to continue to collect the television licence fee as it stands, by abolishing the levy. If we could reduce the television licence fee for hard-pressed taxpayers - I do not believe that can be done in 2015 given the Minister's statement - to in or around €100 we would be making a reasonable start.

I do not believe that long term we can continue to subsidise the State entities. A note of caution must be sounded to many subsidised State bodies, including RTE. If a far left, Sinn Féin Government was to be elected in the next election, bearing in mind that party promotes paying its Deputies and Senators the minimum wage, or a working man's wage, which is around €30,000, many in RTE and other State bodies might find themselves earning €30,000 a year and that their salaries would be reduced fairly quickly.

The issue of the introduction of a broadcasting charge was raised. I would like some feedback on how it would be collected and fairly distributed. I would not be in favour of any new charge or burden on the taxpayer while we currently collect in excess of €200 million a year from the television licence fee.

If one likes to watch rugby, of which we are getting a bit now, and was watching the RaboDirect league in the off-season, one would have to pay six TV channels to watch the PRO12 or the RaboDirect league to watch every game. It is hard to believe that but that is a fact. I tend to go out to watch one or two of them because one could not be having six television channels.

I respect the difficulty in trying to find the balance. I come from a business background and the concept of somebody handing me €200 million a year to run my business does not wash and it cannot wash into the future. I do not believe we can do it. I know we do it for Iarnród Éireann, Bus Éireann and the other entities. This is a debate and I would like to hear the Minister's view on that, but those are my views. I do not believe we can continue to do that.