Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome and I thank her for taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin. It is quite apt given what has been in the news for the past 12 or 18 months that we have been talking about funding models for a significant number of years and reforming the television licence. Indeed the joint Oireachtas committee, of which I am a member, launches a report today which proposes to abolish the licence and fully State fund services, which is something that was not agreed by all members but was a majority vote nonetheless. There need to be changes going forward, particularly to support public sector broadcasting, not just RTÉ as our national TV and radio station, but across all media throughout the country, which work so hard in providing public service broadcasting. This includes our local radio stations, our local newspapers and indeed other organisations, Virgin, Bauer and other organisations throughout the country which are not receiving any funds.

The future of media report which came out two years ago recommended the same and recommended support schemes to be put in place to assist local media in particular. Many of those schemes are not actually working and delivering on the ground. There is no core funding for the news and current affairs, particularly in the independent sector. These are the areas which are under extreme pressure in all other organisations, with regard to resourcing and indeed finances. They have a difficulty in attracting and retaining local journalists and keeping those newsrooms going. I have had significant engagement myself in my role as media representative for Fine Gael, along with a number of my colleagues. We have worked with Independent Broadcasters Ireland and we have met with Local Ireland and Bauer Media and it is clear to me that we need to put supports in place across all media.

To go back to local elections, we were all involved with supporting our candidates and that really showed the public service broadcasting element of all of those newspapers and radio stations, both local and national and the coverage that they gave us. The facts, the truth and the interviews we did not get on social media we got through our local radio stations. I recall Shannonside Radio, which is my local radio station, for Longford, Roscommon, Cavan and Monaghan doing interviews on two mornings at 2.30 a.m. and 3 a.m.. They ran right through until the count finished. That is public service broadcasting and that deserves to be supported. Should we have State funding put in place by the taxpayer? I do not think we should. We need to protect public service broadcasting into the future. Who knows, should a recession hit our country sometime into the future, will we see cuts to the funding? We need to make sure that there are dedicated funds in place and I would be very supportive of that fund being put in place through a fee and paid by everybody, for all media. The moneys collected in that would need to be monitored by Coimisiún na Meán, but that would be available across all media. As an idea, there could be 50% funding for RTÉ from that pot; and 25% for an enhanced Sound and Vision fund that all organisations, both local radio stations and national, could bid for, to provide not just new programming but to continue programming that has proved to be successful. Another 25% would be available for all media organisations, local and national, to provide for the public service broadcasting that they all do and are not being funded for at present.