Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will read a couple of comments from the Minister’s statement that are pertinent to the past two weeks we have had here. She stated:

Public service broadcasting should be independent and have public interest at its core ... [But we] can only do so ... if it is open, truthful, transparent and accountable to the public.

She also stated:

Public service broadcasting is fundamentally based on trust, the trust between the broadcaster and its audience, the trust between a national institution and the people of the country and between a State body and the Oireachtas.

The reality is that over the past two weeks, all of that has been broken and shattered. There is a mammoth task for the Minister, as she has responsibility for media, and us as Oireachtas Members to try to build back that trust, which we need in our public sector broadcasting. I support the timed amendment tabled by the Government and Senator Malcolm Byrne. The Minister has reacted in her role and Government has reacted by setting up the two expert committees that will do a root-and-branch trawl of the finances and wage structures within that organisation. It is only right we let that process follow through and then follow up.

I just came from the media committee, just before this Bill started. I put that question to the new chair of the board with regard to the wage structure within the organisation. Everything is on the table, I think, as far as she is concerned - the significant high wages at the talent level, which is up to €400,000, but also, I think, at executive level. On the list we got today of the top 100, a significant number of those were on the executive at more than €200,000 per person. In fact, the ten members of the executive board make €2.39 million-plus. That is quite significant also.

We need to look at the whole structure of the organisation. This is an issue we previously brought up at committee level with the chair of the board with regard to the significant number of managers within an organisation that has 1,800 employees. There are more than 100 managers for an organisation of that size. I do not know any company in the country that has that number of managers for that size of an organisation, all earning more than €100,000 apiece. The Private Members’ Bill from Senator Mullen is timely because we need to address this issue if we are going to get public confidence back into public sector broadcasting.The committee has done a huge body of work in the last two and a half years on the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill and also feeding into the Future of Media Commission. There were 49 recommendations put forward to support public sector broadcasting at regional level throughout the country. The report noted that 73% of people had trust in our public service broadcasting. We need to get back to that point because it has taken a serious dent today.

On the television licence, I have another role as a postmaster. I still have to cover certain days, holidays and so on. I was in the office over the weekend. There has been a massive backlash. People, knowing I am involved, have told me they have made the decision that they are not going to pay the licence fee. I have spoken to people who work in the banks and they are receiving cancellations of direct debits. We will have the hand out from RTÉ looking for funds in the near future because of the reduced income from the television licence fee. We need to look at the expert review group. It has been stalled. We need a media charge put in place that will not only fund RTÉ but public service media - print and radio - across the country at regional level. It is amazing to go down to the committee rooms and see the number of people and see the numbers from the mainstream media watching the proceedings of the media committee. They are just channelling the view of the people across the country. It is important we grasp this issue, deal with it very quickly and get public confidence back in public service broadcasting in the short term.