Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am speaking on behalf of my colleague, Senator Leyden, who, unfortunately, is out of the country but who would have liked to be here to speak about an issue in his brief. The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, is not normally responsible for dealing with broadcasting matters and is probably covering for the Minister, Deputy Bruton. We understand Ministers are often not available, but it is unfortunate that the Minister is not here. I ask the Minister of State not to take it personally as being against him since the matter being discussed is certainly not within his remit. At the conclusion of his statement he referred to funding for radio stations, while most of his contribution was related to RTÉ, even though the topic we are discussing is statements on public service broadcasting which includes other broadcasters such as TV3 or Virgin Media, as it is now calls itself, in the context of their news and current affairs content. How is it that Virgin Media is able to have an hour-long current affairs programme every night at a time when it does not seem to be within the capacity or willingness of RTÉ to do so? Perhaps it is a judgment call it has had to make. I read a comment made in the newspaper at the weekend. Catherine Fulvio had flown to and back from Portugal where she had learned how to cook something in Portugal. Perhaps that is an issue.

RTÉ is an important part of Irish life. Its news, sport and radio programming are important to people. Most of us will, at some point in the day, listen to it, whether to "Morning Ireland", "Today with Sean O'Rourke", Ryan Tubridy, Ray D'Arcy, Ronan Collins and so on. Lyric FM is a very popular station in many houses with which I am familiar. Many of us rely on RTÉ's website for factual information and news content that is, regardless of how we may sometimes perceive it in these Houses, far more neutral and less biased than that to be found on many of the news websites one might see in other jurisdictions.

It is worth commenting on RTÉ's archives which are both useful and interesting. Information on them pops up every so often. They are a window into what was happening in Irish society ten, 20 or 50 years ago.

I do not want to go back over all of what was included in the Minister's statement on the RTÉ 2024 document which I have in front of me and was emailed to all of us. It outlines how RTÉ is funded, how it has to change, for what it should stand and so on. It is an important document which outlines a strategy for RTÉ. I know that members of the board have waived their fees and that we will see pay cuts and job losses which are unfortunate in any organisation. RTÉ has generally enriched Irish life.

It is nothing personal against the Minister of State, but it seems that the Government has kicked the can down the road on the issue of the television licence fee and how we should examine how we should collect it and whom we should charge for it. I understand hotels and even prisons are paying very small amounts, with there being only one licence fee to be paid for those buildings. I stand to be corrected, but I do not think they are paying a licence fee per television set. It is the same in households, but in a household there will not be more than three or four at most. There will certainly not be 200 or 300. Therefore, the charging mechanism needs to be considered.

We will probably not receive a response on this issue today because the debate is to be adjourned at 6.15 p.m. However, if I am right and the debate is to be resumed the Minister, Deputy Bruton, will be here on the next occasion. It is important we examine why RTÉ is finding it so difficult, in conjunction with An Post, to collect the TV licence fee and why an estimated €35 million to €50 million per year is lost to the TV licence revenue fund, the bulk of which goes to RTÉ. Sky Sports and Sky Movies are able to implement mechanisms whereby they charge by subscription. They scramble the signal. If people want those channels, they pay for them. They get a code, a card or whatever it is in a box. Sky knows who they are and they receive the signal. If they do not pay for it, they do not receive it any more. I would be interested to know whether RTÉ has the ability or a willingness to charge for its content such that if people want it, they pay for it and RTÉ sees how they get on with it. This is perhaps not the normal public service model, but we seem to have one of the worst collection rates in Europe, per RTÉ's 2024 document. It states that collection in Italy transferred to electricity suppliers and it was possible for the fee to be reduced by 20% and evasion fell hugely. The document further states that in Denmark the licence fee will be phased out to become a public service tax via the state budget, in Norway it is the same, and in the UK the fee extends to BBC iPlayer. Should people be able to watch RTÉ Player without having some kind of verification? I cannot watch BBC iPlayer if I am in a different jurisdiction from the UK. People outside this country cannot watch the programmes on RTÉ Player other than the specific ones that have worldwide distribution. There is a way of blocking the signal and blocking people from watching content if one wants to do so. Perhaps we could have a TV licence system whereby one is allowed up to three or four television sets, broadcast devices or whatever one wants to call them per licence and then, if one watches content on an online player, an iPad or one's household television, if one has one, that is covered with the two or three other devices. Such a system would mean that people who do not pay will not be able to watch the service. I do not think any of us who pays the TV licence expects a whole load of other people availing of the service not to pay for it. It is no different from getting on a train or a bus and not paying one's fare; the rest of us ultimately pick up the tab. If everyone paid the fee, I do not think we would have this issue. In fact, we could probably drop the fee per household if all of us paid our fair share.

The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, will go back to the Minister, Deputy Bruton, I presume, with a transcript of what has been said here today. As a party, Fianna Fáil is very supportive of public service broadcasting, despite the fact that public service broadcasting may not always have been kind to Fianna Fáil or indeed anyone else in this House. Nonetheless we value the importance and usefulness of having reliable current affairs programming, reliable and timely sports information and so on.

The Government has been slow to recognise that, as we all know, Google and Facebook are sucking up a lot of advertising revenue. Brexit, which the Minister of State mentioned in his speech, has played a part in reducing revenues, and over time, to be fair to RTÉ, it has cut its costs by 23%, per its figures from 2008. It has had challenges with RTÉ Player in that it does not behave in the way in which many people would like it to behave. It has streaming issues and cuts out and so on. Many people have expressed frustration about this, but if they are not paying for it and they are getting a service, I am not sure they can be too frustrated.

I am glad that Lyric FM has been saved but I am sorry that Limerick has been the loser in that regard. We spend most of our time in this Chamber saying there is too much focus on Dublin, too much activity in Dublin, too many people in Dublin, a housing and schools shortage in Dublin and so on. However, rather than moving some jobs from Dublin to Limerick or from Dublin to Cork, the suggestion is that we do the opposite and move the jobs from a small area, Senator Byrne's area of Limerick, to both Dublin and Cork. I would like to know from the Minister of State the savings involved in this regard. There will still need to be a mid-western correspondent and there will still be some presence down there. However, this Government has been very slow to deal with the TV licence and to face up to the fact that TV3 cut jobs and Independent News & Media and local radio stations have also had issues.

I would be interested to hear the Minister of State's response. I thank him for being here. It is a useful and a very important debate. We need to face up to the fact that the TV licence needs to be structured in such a way that we get up to 99% or 100% compliance.