John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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800. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in view of the fact that every household, business or institution here with a television or equipment capable of receiving a television signal must have a television licence which is a certificate that states that they have paid the appropriate fee to the government and contributed to the cost of public service broadcasting in Ireland, if he will confirm exactly what service is provided by public service broadcasting for this fee where the household are also paying a monthly subscription to an independent television providers for their satellite service; if the Government is not receiving VAT on inter alia the initial television purchase, the television service provider subscription fee and the ESB usage associated with the television set; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37845/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The legislative provisions governing the Television Licence system in Ireland are set out in Part 9 of the Broadcasting Act 2009. The current system stipulates that, except for certain classes of social welfare recipients, if you own a television set in Ireland you are liable to pay a television licence. Revenue derived from the licence fee is used to fund public service broadcasting in the State.Viewers who wish to do so may additionally subscribe to an independent commercial multichannel TV provider but no such subscription goes to fund public service broadcasting. Furthermore, no VAT receipts derived from the purchase of televisions, or ESB usage, for example, flow to the public service broadcasters. Part 7 of the 2009 Act provides for public service broadcasting and sets out the provisions relating to the public service broadcasting corporations, RTÉ and TG4, including their principal objects.

These objects provide for the companies' statutory mandates and encapsulate national policy in terms of public service broadcasting. They include the specific objective of providing for national, free-to-air public service broadcasting services, as well as the provision of a broad range of other additional services that are seen as fundamental to the role of the public service broadcaster. In their pursuit of these objects, the provisions of the Act subject the public service broadcasting corporations to a range of additional regulatory obligations. These statutory objects and obligations set the State-owned public service broadcasters apart from their commercial counterparts.

The rationale for providing State funding for public service broadcasting is to ensure an independent and reliable income flow that allows both RTÉ and TG4 to attain their public service objects, while safeguarding their editorial independence. This is especially important in the context of news and current affairs.

In relation to the television licence fee monies, it should be noted that not all of these are allocated to the public service broadcasters and that a proportion is available to both public and independent broadcasters through the Broadcasting Funding Scheme.

The purpose of this Scheme is to encourage the inclusion of additional programming of a particular character in broadcasters programme schedules. The Scheme is open to independent producers and all 'free to air' broadcasters. It is funded by way of a payment of 7% of net licence fee receipts, which is paid to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) in respect of this Scheme. This amount was increased from 5% to 7% under the Broadcasting Act 2009.