Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment to Cabinet.

My questions relate more to how the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act ties in with this Bill. My only question on the Bill is whether the Minister of State has an indication of how much the levy will raise to support the overheads and expenses of Coimisiún na Meán. As I understand it, this is the second levy that has been introduced to cover the overheads and expenses of Coimisiún na Meán, the new media commission. However, in the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, as Senator Higgins points out, there is power for the media commission to introduce a levy on streaming platforms to support the production of content in Ireland and in Europe.

I understand that an coimisiún has finished its research. I spoke to members of an comisiún at the media committee last September. They informed me that work was beginning and that they expected to conclude it before the time set out by the Future of Media Commission, namely in the first half of this year. They said the research would be concluded by then. They said it would be quite significant and would set out what may come in from a levy and how it might look. They indicated that there would then be a discussion with the Minister as to whether we would be asked to design a scheme to introduce a levy. It is estimated that such a scheme could raise as much as €25 million from streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and others to support the production of content in Ireland. To put that in context, RTÉ funding for the independent sector in 2022 was €43 million. The capital budget for Screen Ireland in budget 2024 was €34 million. The revenue forgone to the Exchequer in increasing the section 481 tax credit was €53 million. A sum of €25 million would be significant for the industry. Has the Minister of State spoken to the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, about this matter?Coimisiún na Meán completed its viability report on the content levy. I want to see that published. It would like to see it as a member of the Oireachtas joint committee who pushed for the power to introduce a content levy. The industry points out that for every year it is not introduced, €25 million is lost to the Irish audiovisual production sector. When will we see that report?