Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I endorse the comments made by Senators Carrigy and Martin in asking that the Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Chambers, is invited in here for a debate on the future of Irish boxing. Notwithstanding the reasons pertaining to the decisions made at the EGM last weekend, those of us who love boxing and support the sport are concerned and worried about the future of boxing. I know through the good work done by Andrew Duncan and others that the sport was reformed. However, I firmly believe we need to have a serious debate about the governance and future of Irish boxing. I am not going to lecture the boxing fraternity about what it should do but as Senator Martin noted, boxing brought people together and for those of us who admire the sport, I hope we will have that again in the future.

I ask that the Report of the Future of Media Commission be debated in the House with the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, as a matter of urgency. In fact, we should have had a debate on it this week. Together with Senator Carrigy, I was a member of the Fine Gael subcommittee that fed into the outcome that is the publication of the report yesterday. It is disappointing that the licence fee has not been looked at. I think that we, as a Government, made a mistake in not doing so and I hope that we can reverse course. Although 49 of 50 recommendations have been accepted, we need to examine the licence issue. In a cost-of-living crisis, perhaps the Government should consider reducing the cost of the licence fee to give the hard-pressed taxpayer and those who are faoi bhrú an opportunity to get a rebate. I also ask RTÉ to look at its structure of costs.

Finally, I concur with the Members of the House by wishing everybody and all the staff of the House a very happy summer vacation. We are well served by people who range from the people who record us, the stenographers, to staff in the Seanad Office and the Bills Office, who were here until 7.30 p.m. last week and we never reached the amendments. I thank the secretarial assistants and staff of Senators who do tremendous work. On behalf of the Fine Gael Group, I can say that we have a tremendous team on this side of the House, of which I am very proud. They do extraordinary work on behalf of the people whom we represent.