Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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238. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will provide in tabular form the number of television licences that were purchased by county in 2014; the total amount paid to RTE from the moneys collected for television licences in 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1894/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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€213.3 million was received in respect of television licence fee sales and ‘free’ licences issued by the Department of Social Protection. As the Deputy will be aware, An Post receives a portion of licence fee revenue to cover the cost of its activities as the Minister's issuing and collecting agent for TV licences.

Under the provisions of the Broadcasting Act 2009, 7% of net licence fee revenue is distributed to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) for onward distribution via the Broadcasting Funding Scheme to assist independent producers and broadcasters in the development of appropriate audiovisual and sound broadcasting programmes, as well as archiving projects. The remaining funds are distributed to the public service broadcasters, RTÉ and TG4. The total amount of funding allocated from licence fee income in 2014 to RTÉ was €178.8m.

While data on licence sales per county is not available, I can confirm that the total number of direct sales in 2014 was 1,018,370.