Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the serious work of the Future of Media Commission. We have yet to see the publication of its report, which sits with the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, and the Taoiseach. The Future of Media Commission is not to be confused with the future media commission, whoever came up with that. It is an independent panel set up under the programme for Government. It had its inaugural meeting on 29 October 2020. It was required to report within nine months, which brought us to 29 July. I have learned, in an article by Pat Leahy in The Irish Times, that it has given its final report to the Government. We learned much more though the leaks that led to the article by Pat Leahy.

The report has been considered by the Government for the past five months. Why is it taking the Government so long to publish it? Why are we reading leaks in The Irish Timesabout the content of the report, specifically with regard to the licence fee? We should not be reading in this way about the contents of a report that cost the Government the considerable amount of €420,000 to publish. It contains a range of measures, not only with regard to the licence fee. It deals with how media should be funded, how the licence fee should be collected and split and conditions attached to funding. These are all critical issues that need to be addressed with media. The Government is still sitting on the report. We have yet to see its publication after five months. We are learning about it through leaks. I feel it will be buried at Christmas. When will we see the publication of the report?