Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There was a debate on public broadcasting in this House some weeks ago and, because of my involvement in other business, I was unable to take part in it. A subject that has not been well covered in these Houses and which needs some attention is the question of diversity within our public broadcaster. One of the most striking aspects of Irish television news programming currently is the absence, or near absence, of presenters, correspondents or reporters from ethnic or minority backgrounds. I am open to correction but from my observation of prime time news bulletins on RTE, TG4 and TV3, there are pretty much no non-national Irish journalists on screen. There may well be journalists of particular ethnic origin working in the respective newsrooms but none appears to have on-camera roles. By comparison, and allowing for the difference in scale or news operation, Channel 4 and Sky News have a large number of visible ethnic-origin journalists. I would like the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, to outline what measures his Department is taking to ensure there is on-screen diversity for all licence payers who consume television news.I paid my television licence recently and, as I was doing so, wondered if I ought. I do not know if there is much support for the recent suggestion of the new director general of RTE, Ms Dee Forbes, that a doubling of the licence fee would be appropriate. She thinks what we are getting is incredible value for money. Most people would think that a rather incredible suggestion. RTE needs to earn the trust of the public. One area in which it could do so is diversity. Earlier this year, RTE advertised for a company to design and deliver diversity and inclusion awareness training to its staff and management. In February, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten, launched the Broadcasting Association of Ireland, BAI, strategy statement which said that the BAI wants to facilitate a mix of voices, opinions and sources of news and current affairs in audiovisual media. However, strategies are redundant unless demonstrable action is taken to ensure that presentation on news programmes on Irish television is truly representative.

Deputy Eamon Ryan of the Green Party caused a considerable stir recently when he brought a bag of recyclables into the Dáil. He was making the laudable point that despite all the discussion of recycling, there is still a huge amount of wastage. The Green Party is to be commended on its efforts in terms of proposing deposits on plastic bottles and the outlawing of certain types of coffee cups and so on but there needs to be a discussion about what happens to the items we recycle. How much of the plastics and Tetra Paks and so on is going into landfills and how much is being recycled? There is a public policy problem if the public senses that it is being told to wash out the milk carton but the carton will end up in the same place as ordinary rubbish. That produces disrespect and cynicism about the whole area of environmental awareness and recycling. We need to know what is happening. A related issue is the labelling of goods. It is not always clear how to dispose of the wrapper of a person's convenience food or spaghetti Bolognese for his or her much-delayed dinner. There needs to be a far greater level of public awareness and also far more levelling with the public about what is happening. I would welcome a debate on that issue as soon as possible, though not necessarily before the summer recess.