Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The publication yesterday of the Digital News Report Ireland 2024 made for extremely interesting reading given that, for the first time ever, online outlets are now the main sources of news for people living in Ireland. They now surpass television, radio and newspapers. Indeed, newspapers rank at only 3% in respect of where people access their daily news. This follows examinations in other countries as well. Worldwide, almost four in ten people now say they sometimes actively avoid the news. This figure has risen from 29% in 2017. In the UK, 73%, or almost three quarters of people, said they get their news online.

The point here is about ensuring news credibility into the future. In this country, RTÉ still retains the trust of the public despite everything that has happened and all the controversies. The journalists in RTÉ are still trusted, and this came through in the report. Regarding the question of who pays for news, only 17% of those surveyed said they paid to access online news content. This goes to the heart of how we will fund our news provision in future. If people are not prepared to pay for the product, then it does not become financially sustainable. Newspapers are on their deathbeds. They have been a bastion of society for more than two centuries. If we do not have the money to pay for the journalists, the newsrooms that operate to provide us with news are going to die.

People clearly do not want to pay for the online news now becoming so popular. This begs the broader question, as we have the debate for the future funding of the media, of who will pay for these news products. We need a broader debate on this topic. We are going to do this in the context of our own reports in the context of the Oireachtas media committee, but in this Chamber, and indeed in society, the findings of yesterday's report throw a very stark light on where we are going with news reporting in future.