Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to move an amendment to the Order of Business proposed by the Leader. I propose that all Stages of No. 5, the Intoxicating Liquor (Amendment) Bill 2017, be taken today. I would be disposed to withdrawing my amendment if the Leader is in a position gives the House an assurance that the remaining Stages will be taken as a matter of priority in the weeks after the Easter recess.

It is time that this House had a proper debate on where the funding of public service broadcasting in Ireland is going. It is all very well for the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, to say he has asked the joint committee, of which I am a member, to look at alternative funding models but many people have taken exception to the suggestion that every large tablet other than a mobile phone should attract a television licence fee or something like that. This House should debate the issue thoroughly. There are many other models, such as earmarking a portion of the local property tax for the fee and imposing it on every house, or giving responsibility for collecting the fee to an agency such as the Electricity Supply Board, which supplies to every single dwelling and commercial premises in the country. It would be a retrograde step to ask people for over €150 per year for the capacity to receive television programmes, however indirectly, on their tablets and portable computers and it would be deeply unpopular with the people. It is about time that the management in RTE realised that there cannot be an increase in the licence fee as it is currently constituted. If somebody had a house in Dublin and a holiday caravan in Skerries, they would have to come up with over €300 per annum for their licence fees.If they want to earn that kind of money to pay it over to the State, at current marginal rates of tax and USC, they will have to earn over €600 for the privilege. I am fully in favour of public service broadcasting and its proper funding, but we cannot have a situation where RTE is encouraged to think it will get more money on this front and that it will be imposed on people across the board just because they have a laptop at their disposal. I ask the Leader to arrange for the Minister for Communications, Cllimate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, to come to the House to debate this issue with us.