The main subject of contention has gone out of this Bill in view of the Minister's announcement in his Second Stage speech that the section providing effectively for the retransmission of the BBC is being dropped. So far as I have been able to discover, in other respects the Bill has been more or less generally welcomed.
I cannot claim to have followed the debate about a second channel with great attention. I followed it only in its large lines. That debate was conducted with something less than frankness, and certainly something less than reason, by those on the side which was popularly identified as being against the Minister. To pretend at this stage that exposure to English television or radio will undermine the national character and culture is an absolutely unsustainable and indefensible proposition. In the remotest parts of Ireland it is perfectly clear that elements of culture are prominent in people's lives which have no Irish roots whatever. There is a limit to what you can do, or what you should attempt to do, about policing people in this regard—I would hate to live in a State in which any ruling clique or sequence of different ruling cliques imposed cultural patters.
It is observable that culturally this country is very porous; I have said this here before. There is almost no fashion, even if it is only a style of speaking, some cliché or cant phrase, which does not take root here very quickly, much more quickly than elsewhere, and which lasts here much longer. Some expression like "no way" comes up in England or America. It is fastened on here and, in no time at all, people have forgotten how to use the word "no". It lasts here long after the habit of speech has disappeared or fallen into disfavour or become unmodish in Britain or America. The same goes for fashions in clothes. The same goes for modes of decorating places of public resort such as lounge bars, and so on.
It seems to me that if one were to examine an Irish village, no matter how remote, on external criteria, in other words, without actually being sensitive to the minds of people and how they work—which, of course, are still a bit different from the way they work elsewhere—one would be very hard put to it to find features of which one could say: "This is a specifically Irish pattern and not an imported one." In very nearly all the material areas of life, I am afraid, one would have to report that people here have become accustomed increasingly to patterns of existence, for better or for worse, which are not specifically Irish.
It is that fact which I record and observe—without particularly deploring it, even though emotionally I would welcome a more specific Irish environment—which renders hypocritical for me the pretence that looking at BBC television will turn an Irishman into an Englishman or into an amalgam of west and east Britons. That is a hypocritical pretence because it seems to me that in all the palpable modes of existence, people in all parts of this country are as thoroughly anglicised as they possibly could be. I regret that very much only in the sense that emotionally I would prefer if it were otherwise; I do not suppose that being anglicised reduces their chance of saving their souls, or makes them any the less charitable, or any the less decent citizens or anything else of that kind, but it does make them less Irish for what that is worth.
The additional dimension of dehibernicisation which would be represented by a direct rebroadcast of the BBC is so small as not to be worth arguing about. Indeed, the values of Britain, such as they are—some of them are extremely low—are already available in newspapers, and notably in Sunday newspapers, and have been for years, and are lapped up avidly with absolutely no cultural resistance. This is the porosity, of which I spoke, of Irish people in all corners of the country. Really, there remains very little left over which we can call our own; and what is left over that we can call our own is sometimes promoted with an excess of self-consciousness which is out of proportion to the importance which the item under consideration bears to the totality of life.
I regard the arguments against rebroadcasting BBC as unreasonable and hypocritical on those grounds. The battle has already, very largely, been lost. The forces of the English-speaking cultural world have already prevailed here. It may be that there is some remote corner of the battlefield to which they have not yet penetrated, or some little mopping up operation which has not yet been completed, and which the rebroadcasting direct of the BBC would achieve. It is so minimal, so tiny, so imperceptible, compared with the substantial cultural conquest which has been made, that it is not worth arguing about and, above all, not worth arguing about in the very emotional terms we heard used over the past year or so.
Moreover, if the arguments used in regard to handing over our culture into the keeping of the English had any truth, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has pointed out very frequently, in Dublin and along the east coast where the BBC and other British programmes have been receivable for years the degree of de-Irishisation should be more marked than elsewhere. I do not observe that; quite the contrary. I observe that in my own Dublin suburban constituency, which is exposed to every British channel, there are more Irish speakers, if you do not mind taking that as a convenient criterion, and more Irish enthusiasts than there are, I believe, in some western or southern four-seat or three-seat constituencies. There are more Irish enthusiasts in the postal districts Dublin 6 and Dublin 14, both of which I represent substantial parts of—I will not identify country constituencies because I do not want to be hurtful— than there are in many parts of the south and west where the BBC cannot be received.
There may be vocational or professional reasons for that, and so forth. But most certainly it is not demonstrable that the receivability of English broadcasting in Dublin, along the east coast, has made Dublin or east coast people any more vulnerable to cultural inroads than people in the south or west. I absolutely dispute that there is a shred of evidence to that effect. I have never seen it and my observations tend in the opposite direction, namely, that there is more conscious, painstaking or laborious Irishness, of which perhaps the interest in the Irish language may serve as a convenient example, in Dublin suburbs than there is in many parts of provincial Ireland. I say that not in any sence of being hurtful to provincial regions but merely to rebut the idea, or what must be the implicit corollary to the argument advanced by the other side that exposure to British broadcasting leaves one a little west Briton. That is absolutely untrue.
That is a point I felt I ought to make now that this national debate is, I hope, drawing to a close. Before it ends I should like to fire one shot—that I absolutely dispute the reasoning in, if I may call it reasoning, and the honesty, in many cases of the argument that to throw open the air waves here to British broadcasting means the end of Irish culture. Irish culture is a very tenuous and feeble little growth in the year 1975 anyway and the additional burden which will be laid on it—if it is a burden at all, which I do not believe —by spreading British broadcasting to the west would make no difference.
In regard to the mode the Minister chose for making up his mind on this question, I said a few disorderly words here the other evening in the course of Deputy Moore's speech. I was sorry to have interrupted him. He took it in good part, but I was provoked into interrupting him because he described the Minister's behaviour in the months and years which preceded the results of this survey as arrogant. It may be that Deputy Moore does not like the Minister for personal reasons which are a closed book to me. It may be that the Minister invites epithets of that kind from time to time, as we all do. But I cannot see, in this particular instance, how he, of all Ministers has deserved to be described as arrogant because, so far as I know, uniquely amongst Ministers in this State in 53 years, he has sought the guidance of a survey which has been scientifically carried out according to modern techniques, the accuracy of whose results nobody disputes; uniquely he sought the guidance of that survey before asking the Government to make up their minds. What Minister ever did that before?
No Minister that I can think of ever did, although there were very strong reasons for doing so in many cases. I asked Deputy Moore "How was it that in all the years of controversy about compulsory Irish under the last Government no Minister ever had the guts to consult the people by means of a survey of this kind as to what kind of an Irish policy they wished to have?" Deputy Moore's reply to that, as far as I can remember it was: "Well, are you going to consult the people about the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill?" That is a fair question and I am going to give it a fair answer. There are areas of what I might call day to day, month to month or even year to year Government policy which require expression in legislation and which are of an extremely sensitive and difficult kind. In these areas, and the example given by Deputy Moore would be one, the Government have to stand on their own feet, make their own decision and carry out their own policy in the Dáil and Seanad.
But there are other areas of national policy which are not simply a matter of dealing with a crisis which may be over tomorrow, in six months or, I hope at most, in a year or so. There are other matters of national policy which are intended to be long-term policy stretching over a generation or two and to have effects stretching over countless generations ahead, items of national policy, broadly speaking, of a cultural kind, of which the efforts to revive the Irish language or to rescue it have provided the most conspicuous example here in 53 years. There are certainly other matters which would fit into the same description but that is a very conspicuous example and one of a quite different kind. I hope I will not be thought a casuist in drawing that distinction. It is a quite different kind of policy; it is not as immediately explosive. It is not one on which a wrong decision now may have irreparably disastrous consequences. It is a policy area of a quite different kind and it would have responded to a properly conducted survey in regard to the people's attitudes.
Perhaps I may develop that point for a moment. The Official Report for one of the early years of the forties will show an exchange in the House here between the then Taoiseach, Mr. de Valera and the then Leader of Fine Gael, General Mulcahy—who, as everyone knows, was a very enthusiastic and, for some people's tastes perhaps too enthusiastic, Irish revivalist. General Mulcahy asked the Taoiseach whether he would consider making provision for the application of a compulsory Irish test to candidates for the Dáil and Seanad. Mr. de Valera replied to him in Irish, saying: No, he would not consider such a move because it was not clear that the people's support would be behind such a measure; he would not support compulsory Irish for entry to the Dáil or Seanad because it might not enjoy popular support. In other words, popular support might not be got for a measure to compel candidates for both Houses to pass some kind of an Irish test. But that same Government never considered whether there was any popular support for forcing tests of exactly the same kind on humble children, applicants for even the most junior grades in the public service, for entry to the Garda and so on. The question of whether or not public support would be forthcoming for the application of that kind of policy never entered the then Taoiseach's mind or the mind of any of his Government.
This Minister has uniquely deserved not to be described in this context as arrogant because, unlike any predecessor or unlike any other Minister in any other Government here, so far as I know, before making up his mind finally—and I say "finally" with intention because this Bill had already gone through the Seanad, where it had a stormy passage—he said: "All right, the representations are very strong, some of them very persuasive; RTE in particular, has put its hat into the ring, said it is anxious to supply this second service, and I am going to give the people, by means of this survey, a chance to say what they want." He did that and he must be saluted for it. He will not, perhaps, be expected to submit every ministerial decision he makes or every ministerial policy he promotes to the same test and I would not ask him to. I do not think any Minister should be asked to do that in regard to all his measures. But, in regard to this matter, it was very appropriate, I will not say for decisions because decisions are made by the Dáil and Seanad, but for advice which he was enough of a democrat to regard as persuasively binding on him.
Having said that about the taking of the survey and about the argument which preceded it, I hope the Minister will forgive me if I say that I am not disappointed at the way the survey turned out. I observe in the Minister's speech—I will not say he minimises in the rhetorical sense but he draws attention—the fairly close similarity between the deal which RTE were proposing in a second channel and the deal which would have been got by the people if BBC had been rebroadcast direct. He says, quite rightly, the people—no matter which way they had shown a majority— would have been opting for a choice and in fact for similar kinds of choices. Therefore, in the Minister's mind, and justifiably, there is not a great deal of difference between the RTE second channel proposal and the BBC proposal. That is a fair way of looking at it but I am inclined to put my own reading on the results which show a very substantial majority in favour of RTE, and the reading I put on it and am glad to put on it and which leaves me in the position that I am not a bit disappointed by the result, is that hidden beneath all the "no ways," and the platform soles, the hideous imported plastic fascias, and all the indicia of our cultural surrender, is a vestigial or residual anxiety on the part of the Irish people not to disappear as such, to stand up for their own institutions and to prefer their own institutions and their own way of doing things; and although I absolutely reject, and reject with contempt, all those bogus and phoney arguments about how we would become little west Britons if the BBC were directly rebroadcast, I hope I see in the choice of a second RTE channel a kind of despairing indication on the part of the people that they would like their own television service, even if it does very largely rebroadcast material from outside because at least the finger on the button which will determine what is going to be rebroadcast and what is not will be an Irish finger.
Again, if my interpretation is a reasonable one—I do not know if the Minister thinks so—I am glad the survey turned out as it did. I must confess I would have been a bit distressed, despite my arguments about the bogusness of the campaign mounted against the Minister if a large majority had said: "OK, let the BBC take over". As I have said, I do not think it would have done any damage, but their preference for it even though it may not make a great difference to them in correct terms, is one which shows a residual anxiety to be their own men and to run matters in their own way, and if at all possible to see as much native material as they can. It is for that reason I am glad the result turned out as it did, and I believe that pleasure will be shared by the Minister—I hope I am not being presumptuous in saying that— and that he can at least sympathetically understand this point of view.
I want to say a few words about what any television service here should do. I would have liked to see the amendment of section 31 which the Minister proposes extended a bit further so as to create power in the Government or in the Minister, not to prohibit the broadcasting of material but to require the broadcasting of material other than mere ministerial announcements. I have said something like this in the House before on another occasion about a year ago and I do not want to be wearisome in repeating it, but a country like this, which is a small almost family-sized community but which has got very large problems, must have available whatever means it has to mobilise its resources. It cannot afford the luxuries which larger and stronger countries can afford.
To treat television purely as an entertainment and a mode of relaxation —and I know I differ here from many people who have made a study of it and who work in television—is a luxury people in a community like ours cannot afford. We have got here a very powerful weapon for mobilising people's minds and influencing their actions, and I am quite alive to the danger of throwing open the broadcasting weapon to the operation of a purely political force and to the danger that it might be taken over and used in order to forward the purposes of the Labour Party, the Fine Gael or the Fianna Fáil Party. Nevertheless a television service in a country like this which has so few ways of dealing with the blows which rain on it from the outside world, which is so vulnerable to the outside world, must go a bit further than television services elsewhere.
To take a trendy example because it is on everybody's lips these days, if this country can derive substantial benefit from some humble activity like recycling waste paper, it presumably is a benefit which other countries can also derive from the same activity. Other countries may be economically strong enough to allow ordinary market forces to operate in such a way as to inspire the collection or recycling of waste paper, but we may not be in that situation. It may be that what other countries can allow themselves a liberty in respect of is not open to us. It may be that even in a boy scout-size activity like recycling waste paper or preventing waste generally, the State here ought to take an initiative.
I repeat in this connection that I do not mean a politically contentious initiative. I do not believe that a Government which is at loggerheads with the Opposition on a matter of principle should be given the freedom of the air to promote its political point of view and drown the Opposition's point of view. What I do mean is that in a non-contentious area where the mobilisation of public opinion and the activation of individual or community initiatives are concerned, the television service in a small weak country like this which is vulnerable in many ways, must take on itself or should consider taking on itself functions which perhaps the television services in France, Germany and Holland do not need to take on because their economies are stronger. Therefore I believe the case must be made for thrusting upon the television service at whatever cost to the finances of the State or at whatever cost to the recreational content of the service—although I do not believe that instruction is necessarily nonrecreational—the duty of leading individuals and the community in actions of what I might broadly call an economic kind, to mobilise them to defend their own economic existence in preventing waste, making the best possible use of their local resources and so on. I could spend a day listing desirable activities which could be promoted by intelligent advertisements, but I am not going to multiply them for Deputies who can quite well multiply them for themselves.
It seemed to me always that to treat this enormously powerful force or weapon which is at the State's disposal as simply a thing to enable the citizens to put their feet up in front of was a mistake. I know I may be open to the criticism of trying to turn RTE into a sort of platform like Dr. Castro uses in Cuba when he harangues people for hours on end when telling them to push up sugar production or whatever it is he is advising them to do. I do not mean it should be dehumanised to that point, but I do think it must take on itself a function which is different from entertainment, different from recreation, which is expressly instructional and expressly intended to provide leadership in matters of this kind or to mediate leadership to ordinary people and to ordinary communities.
I know I am not very far away from the favourite point of view of the late President Erskine Childers. I noticed with interest that the Minister paid a tribute to his memory in the opening paragraphs of his speech. As far as I remember, I agreed with very little the late President said, I am sorry to say, but I had a great deal of sympathy for the point of view he used to express with regard to the media and broadcasting, that it was too much given to bad news and not enough given to good news. It was not so much news I wanted to direct these remarks to, as to the kind of leadership I am talking about. One form of transmitting leadership—and nothing could be better adapted to this than television—is to show people success stories: success stories of small industries, success stories of tidy towns, success stories of individuals who overcome handicaps, success stories in agriculture. While I know Radio Telefís Éireann do transmit such stories and I am not in any way accusing them of hiding such matters, I know they do it, I think that the doing of such things should be intensified and there should be far more of it. It may be that many people would switch off or switch to the more popular channels if they had a choice. That may be, but the 10 per cent or 15 per cent that do not switch off are the people one is trying to reach. The number of people capable of giving leadership, even in small ways, in the country is small. If there is one leader in six or one in ten it is a high proportion. That is precisely the proportion that would be reached, I believe, by programmes of this kind. All this is completely at odds with the television medium's conception of its own role.
The television medium's conception of its own role may be appropriate and possibly the only conception of its role, in a different kind of country. I believe it is not appropriate for a country like this. I believe we have very few natural resources of our own that we can mobilise to help us in the increasingly difficult economic world we are moving into, but the existence of a medium which will reach straight into people's minds and hearts is one of the powerful weapons we have. It may be the most powerful one, for all I know. To treat it simply as a recreational—and no doubt simultaneously edifying, but mainly as a recreational—medium, is a mistake and one which the country cannot afford indefinitely.
I am glad to see the Authority's independence and autonomy being entrenched to a greater degree by a provision of this Bill. I see now that a member of the Authority is being given a security of tenure while his appointment lasts comparable with that of a judge. I am not sure that quite that degree of entrenchment is necessary but I recognise that the intention is a good and a sound one and I completely support it. To leave the controlling authority of the television service in the position where a signature of the Minister could remove them would not be desirable. I do not specially accuse the former Government of having abused this power and I do not particularly say it has ever been abused but we do not know what kind of Governments will come after us. I am certain that to build in a safeguard of the kind the Minister proposes is a good thing and I believe the Authority will immediately benefit from it, will be freer and able to do a better job. I congratulate the Minister on the Bill and I wish the Authority success.