I should like to ascertain from the Minister what is the basis for the proposed cost of the television service. As I understand it, this Money Resolution provides for payment of certain sums to the new Authority made up of the receipts from broadcasting licence fees less any expenses incurred by the Minister and, under (b) 1 of the Resolution, such further sums not to exceed £500,000, and under (b) 2, an amount not exceeding £2,000,000 in the aggregate for capital purposes. One of the difficulties in dealing with this matter is that apparently the Government have changed their minds since the original Commission was established. The terms of reference of the Commission contained the following:
On the basis that no charge shall fall on the Exchequer, either on capital or on current account...
As I understand it this money resolution involves a charge in respect of both capital and current account and, in the course of the Commission's Report, reference is made to the cost involved. Certain figures are quoted in Chapter 3, dealing with an estimated basis of a certain number of television licences, and on that basis they estimated that in the third year of operation there will be a net licence revenue of £330,000. In addition to that there will be revenue from advertising of £350,000 making a total of £680,000 and on the other side total expenditure is estimated at £650,000.
I refer to these figures because in the minority report signed by four members, Eoin Ó hAodha, Síle Ní Chinnéide, Michael Gibbons and Roger McHugh, at paragraph 23 on page 64, particulars are given of the cost of B.B.C. programmes per hour, exclusive of engineering and other costs, and these figures indicate that for the year 1956-57 the cost per hour was £1,538 and for 1957-58 it was £1,730 per hour. The paragraph goes on to say:
In short, B.B.C. expenditure on programming per hour last year was nine times the amount which those applicants propose to spend on Irish Television programmes.
That was in the year 1957-58.
It rose in one year by approximately the total amount per hour which these applicants propose to spend on Irish television programmes.
Under this Bill, and the change which it proposes in the method of establishing a television service, the figures may not, to some extent, give a valid basis of comparison because the interests concerned who submitted schemes are replaced by an Authority which will be established directly by the Government but, at any rate, they give us a reasonable indication of the very high costs involved. For that reason I believe that the figures quoted in paragraph 23 are a much closer approximation of the cost of a comparable programme which the Irish television service will be expected to provide, if it is expected to compete with other programmes. The last sentence in that paragraph reads:
An Irish T/V service will be in competition with both B.B.C. and I.T.V. programmes.
I raise this because from experience I believe it is difficult, once the State establishes a service or undertaking, to limit expenditure or to prevent it from being discontinued if it founders financially. On this occasion, at any rate, it can proceed cautiously in the knowledge that experience elsewhere shows that expenditure rises rapidly and tends to rise continuously in order to provide anything like a service which is considered acceptable by the public.
Quite recently a letter appeared in the daily Press from Mr. Maurice Gorham, who is the former Director of Radio Éireann and it contained this interesting paragraph:
...from my experience of directing television in England, I knew the difficulties of running a good service even in a country with far greater financial resources than those we have here. As director of broadcasting in Ireland I knew that Radio Éireann was still lacking in the resources it needed to do its job and cover the country, which it has never had the money to do. And putting the two things together, I doubted the possibility of having a good combined service on the terms proposed.
That is an interesting commentary and one which deserves due consideration, being made by a person who has experience over a number of years of Radio Éireann and who also had television experience in England. Even as recently as early this week Mr. Aneurin Bevan, in an interview published in a number of papers, including the London Times, commented on the fact that he was appalled by the appallingly low standard of the programmes with which television viewers were presented in Britain. He went on to say that he did not regard himself as an expert but nevertheless it is an interesting commentary.
It does not automatically follow because a programme costs a lot of money that it will, for that reason, be better than one which costs less but, taking into account the figures contained in the Minority Report which I have quoted, the opinion expressed after the number of years experience which Mr. Gorham had and the commentary on the standard of programmes expressed by Mr. Bevan, it is significant that a country which has far greater financial resources and a much bigger pool of viewers to draw upon has up to the present found expenditure rising and that, despite the resources and the large number of viewers, the cost has continued to increase.
I believe, therefore, that we should get from the Minister a clear indication of the basis on which the Government have decided that it will be necessary to provide only a sum of £500,000 in addition to the receipts from licence fees for the next five years, the implication being that after that a charge will not fall on the Exchequer. That, I believe, is one of these pious hope resolutions. Similar phrases are contained in a number of Acts but experience shows that, with very few exceptions, the hopes are not realised.
It is clear from the Report of the Television Commission that no adequate assessment of the basis of cost was made. In fact, the terms of reference of the Commission expressly directed them to operate on the basis that no charge should fall on the Exchequer either on capital or current account. The paragraph I have quoted and the figures contained in chapter 3 are, to a very considerable extent, vitiated by the figures quoted from paragraph 23, page 64, of the Minority Report.
When a measure of this sort is introduced we should have an accurate and as full as possible assessment of the likely charge which will fall on the Exchequer. In one significant remark in chapter 3 the implication is that no matter how the charges are made, whether through licences or otherwise, the cost will be borne by the Irish public, who will either have to pay more for a licence or for advertisements.
Experience elsewhere has shown that the interests most adversely affected by television are the cinemas. In Britain there was a very considerable drop in cinema attendances. Evidence was given at the Commission here that in the case of an important group of Irish cinemas attendances had already fallen by 20 per cent. as compared with 1956. It was only 18 months or two years after 1956 that that considerable drop took place. Press advertising is also likely to be affected.
I do not know whether consideration will be given to the position of cinema authorities, that any portion of the tax will be remitted or whether, in the case of the Press, the question of remitting the five per cent. tax will be considered. In any event, the general indications are that the cinemas and the Press are the interests likely to suffer most. The cinemas and the daily, provincial and weekly newspapers give considerable employment and I would be interested to get from the Minister an indication of the basis on which it has been decided that the costs envisaged in this Money Resolution have been worked out because, on the facts as published in the Commission's Report and on evidence available elsewhere, it is difficult to believe that it will be possible to run a service which would be regarded as satisfactory on the basis set out in this Resolution.
