Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I thank him for taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin. We are looking at the future funding of public sector broadcasting. This has been one of the proverbial cans that has been kicked down the road.In November 2017, there was a report on the future funding of public service broadcasting by the Oireachtas committee on communications. That, in turn, led to the Government setting up the working group on TV licence collection, which reported in April 2019. It very clearly stated: "The current model of TV licence regime does not provide the required level of sustainable and future-proofed funding [for public service broadcasting]." It suggested, as I am sure the Minister of State knows, a device-attached fee, which the Government did not accept. That was kicked to the Future of Media Commission, which reported in July 2022. The Government accepted 49 of the commission's recommendations. It is acting on a number of them and doing very well, bar the one on the question of public sector funding, which recommended that funding should come directly from the Exchequer. A technical working group was established in September 2022 to examine a secure and sustainable funding model for public service media and licence fee reforms. The then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, said in November that this would optimise the future structure of the fee.

At the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Sport and Media, we have been exploring how we can look at funding models as well. One of the things we would hope, and we have been making this case to the Minister, is that whatever funding arrangement comes into being should be a multi-annual funding arrangement, whether that is for RTÉ or others engaging in public sector broadcasting, so there is a guarantee as to the level of funding over a number of years. I understand that the report of the technical working group is with the Minister at this stage.

It is widely accepted that RTÉ is in the middle of a funding crisis. That is not just due to the licence fee issue. Broader issues relating to the management of RTÉ internally need to be resolved. There is also the core question of the overall funding of public sector broadcasting. The Minister of State will be very aware that we are in an increasingly fragmented media environment. Streaming services and digitalisation have transformed how we consume media. Equally, we know the importance of public sector broadcasting. That was very evident during the Covid period. With regard to his brief, we know the importance of public sector broadcasting in combating misinformation and disinformation and the major role broadcasters have in that space. We need to have a level of certainty within this and I am concerned that we are not getting that. The working group report has not been published and a decision is not being made on what we are going to do with public sector broadcasting.

In fact, the recent debate around GAAGO and what happened there was only a symptom or part of this broader and bigger challenge about what constitutes public sector broadcasting, how sport needs to be funded, the role of streaming services and so on. We need the wider debate but if we are going to have proper public sector funding for RTÉ and the sound and vision fund that will now be administered by Coimisiún na Meán, we need to have a level of certainty. All I am asking is for the Minister of State to tell us today that the Government is not going to kick the can even further down the road.