We should finish before 10.30.
I propose to take the token Vote for Wireless Broadcasting and the Supplementary Vote for Posts and Telegraphs together. Wireless Broadcasting, as a Government service, is, as Deputies are aware, coming to an end and a new Authority, Radio Éireann, will, in accordance with the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960, be established for the purpose of providing a national television and sound broadcasting service.
The separate Vote for Wireless Broadcasting will disappear. The grants-in-aid payable to the new Authority will be borne on the Vote for Posts and Telegraphs: the general practice is to include such grants-in-aid in the vote of the paying Department.
The Estimate for Wireless Broadcasting in the printed volume of Estimates provided for approximately four months' expenditure, and amounted to one third of last year's provision. The intention was to ensure that the service could be carried on until such time as the Oireachtas had taken a decision on the Broadcasting Authority Bill. The amount sought, except for £500, was granted in the Vote on Account.
A vote of £500 is now being taken to enable Deputies to discuss matters connected with the Wireless Broadcasting service as at present constituted. If the new Authority is established on the 1st June, as at present intended. there will be a surrender back to the Exchequer in respect of two of the four months covered by the Vote on Account. In settling the grants-in-aid for the new Authority and the additional provision made for Radio Éireann in the Budget, allowance was made for such a saving.
The Supplementary Estimate of £479,000 for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is to provide for grants-in-aid to Radio Éireann under the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960, and for certain other expenditure arising out of the arrangements being made under that Act or related to them.
It is intended that Radio Éireann will be established as the broadcasting authority on the 1st June next. The grants in these subheads are in aid of the expenses of sound broadcasting for the remainder of the year. It is not expected that any appreciable expenditure, other than capital, including working capital, expenditure will arise on television this year.
Deputies will remember that in the Broadcasting Authority Act, it was provided that the Authority might be paid in respect of each of the five consecutive financial years beginning with that in which the Authority was established—
(a)a grant equal to the total of the receipts in that year from broadcasting licence fees, less the expenses incurred in collecting those fees or in preventing interference with reception: and
(b)a further grant, subject to a limit of £500,000 for the five years.
Under Subhead P.I. a grant of £270,000 equivalent to the estimated net receipts from broadcasting licence fees for ten months is proposed. Under Subhead P.2 an additional grant of £145,000 is proposed. This latter amount is greater than a strictly proportional division of the total of £500,000 mentioned in the Act would warrant, but we believe that the amount of the grant can be progressively decreased. The present intention is that, on balance, the same amount will be made available for sound broadcasting this year as in the last two years. Costs of broadcasting have, however, been rising and it will be necessary for the new Authority to examine its financial position at an early date.
The Authority will, of course, be under statutory obligation to conduct its affairs so that its services will become self-supporting as soon as possible, and to this end it will be required to submit accounts in a form which will show clearly its total revenue and expenditure for each year. This will involve taking account of such charges as interest on capital and depreciation which have not appeared in the accounts of Radio Éireann hitherto. When the Authority has had time to examine its finances—present and prospective—on this commercial account basis, the questions of increasing the sound licence fee of 17s. 6d. and of introducing a television licence fee will be dealt with. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the 17s. 6d. fee which has been in operation since 1953 is one of the lowest of its kind in Europe and it will have to be increased if the considerable element of subsidy in the present Estimates is to be reduced and eventually eliminated. Any extra revenue from increased licence fees would not of course be made available to the Authority except by Vote.
As Deputies can see from the footnote the accounts of the Authority will be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General and laid before the Oireachtas.
Although Radio Éireann will on the establishment day take over the operation of the sound broadcasting system and the control of the staff engaged on it, it will not be possible to arrange for the definitive transfer of all the staff for quite some time afterwards. Many of them, particularly on the administrative and engineering sides, are established civil servants. They will have to be given an opportunity to decide whether they wish to remain with the new Authority and, similarly, the Authority will have to have an opportunity to decide whether it wishes to retain them. In order to safeguard their present Civil Service status and, particularly, any superannuation benefits they might be eligible for, it is essential that they should continue to be paid out of voted moneys until they are formally transferred. Accordingly, it is proposed to bear their salaries and wages on the Vote for Posts and Telegraphs during the interim period and to regard them as on loan from my Department to the new Authority.
It is assumed that it may take up to ten months to complete the transfer. The provision under P.3 is to cover those salaries and allowances. The amount paid will, however, be recovered from the Authority, together with superannuation contributions in the case of established staff. The amounts recovered will be brought to account as an appropriation-in-aid under Subhead T.15. P.3 and T.15 are therefore largely self-balancing entries but the arrangement is of importance to the staff.
As I explained to Deputies in March in connection with another Supplementary Estimate, I set up a small advisory committee in September last to advise and to assist me in the preliminary arrangements for the introduction of television. It had originally been hoped that the new Authority would be in a position to take over from the committee at the beginning of this year and accordingly no provision was made for its expenses in the main Estimate. As there is doubt whether expenditure on the committee would come within the ambit of the main Vote, the matter is being specifically dealt with in this Supplementary Estimate. The committee will continue in existence up to the 1st June. Its members do not receive remuneration for their work but are paid travelling and subsistence expenses. The provision is also to cover miscellaneous expenditure on technical advice, occasional entertainment, etc., arising out of the work of the committee.
In Part II of the Third Schedule to the Broadcasting Authority Act, it was provided that advisory committees might be appointed in connection with the making of regulations about interference with wireless telegraphy receiption and related matters. It is proposed to appoint such committees during the year—no details have been decided on yet—and as again there is doubt whether expenditure on the committees would come within the ambit of the main Vote, the matter is being specifically covered.
This is, in effect, an accounting matter. When the main Estimate was being prepared, the intention then was to deduct from the receipts from broadcasting licence fees the expenses my Department will incur on the collection of the revenue and on the prevention of interference, etc., and to bring the amount to the credit of the Vote as an appropriation-in-aid. It has since been decided that the entire receipts should be paid in to the Exchequer. Accordingly, the amount of the appropriations-in-aid in the main Estimate has to be reduced by a deduction in this Supplementary Estimate.
I do not think that it is necessary for me to give an account to the House of the operations of broadcasting last year. During the course of the Broadcasting Authority Bill through the Oireachtas, the members of both Houses had an opportunity of discussing broadcasting in all its aspects, and the existing sound broadcasting service was, in fact, very fully discussed. As you know, the Irish broadcasting service was set up as a direct State responsibility in 1926 and has been operated as a State service since then. That phase is now coming to an end and we are about to hand over the service to a statutory body, the membership of which has been recently announced.
The time is therefore opportune for me to say that the new Broadcasting Authority will take over an organisation in good working shape which by and large has served the nation well. It has been criticised from time to time for not doing things which it could not have done because of lack of finance or for some other good reason. It has also been criticised for maintaining cultural standards, for not concentrating on the kind of programme that appeal to teenagers and mass audiences and for carrying out its responsibility in connection with the national language policy of the State. In surrendering my direct responsibility for programme policy, I feel that I should endorse the stand taken by Radio Éireann in these matters. I might also say that Radio Éireann has never had to be accused of deviating from strict standards of morality and good taste. That is an achievement of which the service can be proud.
The Authority's most urgent task will be to start and extend the proposed television service. As I have mentioned before, certain preliminary steps have been taken with the advice of the Television Advisory Committee towards shortening the delay which would otherwise occur in starting the service. The contract for the transmitter installations at Kippure has been placed; a certain amount of work has been done on the planning of the Dublin studio centre and the acquisition of sites for the four other main transmitting stations is in hand by the Commissioners of Public Works. It will now rest with the Authority to carry on from there. The funds for this work, which is work of a capital nature, are not provided for in the Estimate now before the House. They will be met from advances for capital purposes provided for in Section 23 of the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960. I am sure that the House will appreciate that the Authority faces a formidable task and in the initial years it will have the sympathetic understanding of the House and of the country in carrying it out. It will have to build up from the ground not alone the physical assets of a television service but an organisation of staff and talent where none exists at present. It will have to put out a service of programmes in the face of intense competition over a large part of the country from two of the most powerful television and broadcasting organisations in the world. If too much is not expected at once I have every confidence that within a few years, the Authority will provide a national service which will have achieved a considerable degree of success. I offer the Authority personally, and I am confident I can do so on behalf of this House, every good wish in its heavy task.