Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have listened carefully to what my colleagues have said. There have been some extremely interesting insights which will be very helpful to me in terms of surveying the legislative environment that exists and considering what type of changes it would be appropriate to make.

In the first instance, there is a philosophical debate about public service broadcasting. Although all of the contributions were excellent, Senator Mooney, with his background and knowledge of the area, and Senator Whelan did justice to the underlying philosophy that has always existed in respect of the funding of public service broadcasting. As I said to the committee this morning, it dates back through Governments of all hues and does not involve just this Administration. I state earlier that it dates back to the 1960s but, of course, we have had radio broadcasting from the 1920s. There has been an ethic of public service broadcasting running through the approach taken by all Governments throughout that period.

There are no issues that are off the table or that cannot be debated. However, and Senator Mulcahy probably put this at its sharpest, the notion that one would remove or abolish the licence fee and take away public funding for public service broadcasting has not been widely canvassed over the years. It is an argument the Senator is entitled to bring into the debate.