Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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130. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the breakdown of all State funding for local radio stations in 2019 and 2020; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28030/20]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Part 10 of the Broadcasting Act, 2009 makes provision for the disbursement of 7% of the net television licence fee receipts to the Broadcasting Fund administered by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI). The Broadcasting Fund supports both the Sound and Vision (S&V) and Archiving Schemes. Total Licence Fee Receipts comprises monies from TV licence sales and exchequer funding from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection for the operation of the free TV licence Scheme.  

Total funding under the Sound and Vision 3 scheme was €951,181 in 2019 and to date in 2020 is €3,020,156 for programming produced by or for a community or commercial radio  broadcaster.

The current  S&V 4 Scheme provides for funding for the community radio sector in respect of their social benefit obligations. This amounts to funding of €750,000 for community radio in 2020.  Applications are now being invited. Further information is available on the BAI's website at .

On 8^thSeptember the BAI launched an open funding round of the scheme, for which I secured €2m in exchequer funding in the July Stimulus and which will amount to €4.5m in total. While this round will mainly focus on the audio visual sector, it will also provide more than €200,000 in funding for independent audio producers working with commercial, community and public service radio stations. In addition to the Sound and Vision Schemes Foras na Gaeilge approved grants to Raidió na Life (€720,000 over three years) and Raidió Fáilte (€648,000 over three years) under the Community Radio Scheme 2019-2021, which will support both stations provide an all-Irish broadcasting schedule for the local Irish language listening community in Dublin and Belfast.

My Department has been funding Raidió RíRá since its inception in 2008 with funding of €615,725 provided and funding of € 75,000 approved by my Department for the station this year and an equivalent amount for 2021. Capital funding of €9,963 was provided to Raidió na Life this year to enable them to purchase new computers for the station.

Radio stations also benefit from other State subsidies – for example the Community Employment Scheme administered by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection.