I had almost concluded on the last occasion. As will have been apparent from the drift of the comments from this side of the House, we find this Bill unacceptable for a number of reasons. The essential reasons were well spelled out by our spokesman, Deputy Deasy. Section 3 seeks to place a monopoly of broadcasting, both national and local, in the hands of the RTE Authority. Despite our admiration for the fine work carried out by that august body, we feel there is no justification, political or otherwise, for such a provision. The Minister may point out that section 3 (1) does not necessarily exclude the possibility of enabling measures being introduced subsequently which would allow others into that area. In the absence of any visible evidence of such a proposal we may conclude that the Government intend to deal with the matter in this way. That is unsatisfactory.
In effect this is local broadcasting brought in by the back door, and it is doing a disservice. It would be far more useful and practical if we had one Broadcasting Authority Bill in front of us—whatever the draftsmanship delays—which dealt with local broadcasting and the Government's attitude and the attitude of the House to those who are broadcasting without a licence. This Bill is unacceptable accordingly. The more I thought about it over the weekend the more disturbed I became, because what appears to be a relatively innocuous Bill, designed ostensibly to give extra money to RTE to carry on their good work, could be interpreted much more subtly.
Section 3 flies in the face of the policy to which this party are committed. We believe section 3 is not in the public interest. The difference between local and national broadcasting does not need to be teased out any further. I dealt with it fairly extensively last week. I want to quote one comment from an article in an issue of the Broadcasting Review last year by Jean Darcy, the president of the International Institute of Communications. He said in reference to local broadcasting and what our response should be:
Questions concerning opportunities for self expression at the local community level should be decided not in terms of mass media but in terms of communication. The concept of group media, in contra-distinction to mass media has been proposed to cover those media operating on a human scale.
This thinking is backed up and supported by an article in The Irish Times of 23 February 1978. It is by Howard Kinlay, who wrote:
A national radio network, with its generalised approach to the issues of the day is, perforce difficult to interrupt with the localised experiences which are probably the primary preoccupation of most of the listeners most of the time. It is not the role of a national radio service to respond to these preoccupations in other than a generalised way. Indeed, in a mass communications situation, even the perception of them is extremely difficult and, to some extent, a distraction.
Therefore, we do not seek to exclude RTE from local broadcasting. What we seek is to introduce a situation in which local broadcasting is an area in which certain qualifications recognisable in law and acceptable to the community are in the possession of such groups.
We are saying that we should not seek to exclude people because of the nature of local broadcasting, and this clause undoubtedly will be used without any prevarication or any suggestion of a doubt to try to justify inaction and inertia later on when it comes to a commitment by the Taoiseach to introduce local broadcasting policy. It will then be pointed out to us that we already have an embryonic local broadcasting policy in the hands—God bless those good hands—of the national television network, and anyone daring to raise a finger against that will be accused of lack of confidence in the national network, which would be far from true. I am reminded, incidentally, of a reference by Norbert Frye when he said:
It is significant that our symbolic term for "tyrant" is the word "dictator", that is, an uninterrupted speaker.
If we seek to enshrine in the hands of any small group the main organs of communication, the main media, all of us will do a disservice. I will not go into it in any greater detail. However, I ask the Minister to reconsider section 3. If the main aim of the Bill is to give money to RTE to enable them to carry on, the Minister will not lose anything by considering withdrawing this section and its possible inclusion later in the broadcasting legislation he has promised. If section 3 does not do anything more than spell out what is implicitly understood in section 16 (1) of the 1960 Act, which gives RTE power to engage in local broadcasting anyhow, the Minister cannot say that the withdrawal of this section would delay RTE activity in this area. Accordingly he would not have anything to lose and would probably be responsible for a much more satisfactory Bill, a much more rounded debate and a more acceptable response to his promised measures when they are introduced eventually.
In the meantime, I am afraid that the insertion of this clause is not, as far as I and my party are concerned, acceptable. I have referred to section 4 which I would also ask the Minister to reconsider. It seems to us to be unconstitutional. It seeks to do something we are very prone to in this country whenever a new technological challenge arises: we run to try to introduce some cobweb of bureaucratic regulation or legislation to limit the freedom of people. We should not try to do that except in the most extreme circumstances, and I am far from convinced that we need to limit the activities or the freedom of people in RTE in the manner proposed in the Bill. I think that a constitutional action taken in the proper jurisdiction might very well be successful.
I shall deal for a few minutes with section 1, which seeks to grant funds to RTE. As I have said, sections 3 and 4 are most unhelpful from the point of view of prompting a sympathetic response and I hope the Minister will consider our objections which are based on an honest concern about the possible dangers which a Government less benign than I presume this one are might operate in this regard.
Section 1 proposes to give money and section 2 says such moneys shall not exceed £25 million in the aggregate. Last week I expressed the view that I would prefer to have the power in the hands of the Government to give the necessary moneys without having to come back to the House when an increase would be needed. It seems to me to be an unnecessary waste of public time. In so far as we are now asked to vote money towards the national television network, it is not outside the bounds of reasonable response to ask to what extent we are satisfied with the manner in which present moneys are being spent, how it is felt those moneys would be spent in the future when allocated, and what the general attitude is in this House as to the present financial accountability of the network.
As far as I am concerned, it is not at all unhelpful to have a debate of this kind now and again. It might help the people in RTE, the planners there, people watching broadcasting generally, and it would also be helpful to us to communicate our areas of interest and concern. I wish to join with previous speakers who have paid tribute to the manner in which RTE have been carrying out their functions. In a very short time they have become a fine professional organisation, they have attained a very high standard of network service, and in terms of comparable analysis with other countries, particularly in Europe, they have come out very well.
Of course, it is popular for people to say, "There is never anything on television". We are all very hard on our own station—presumably, far way hills being greener than ours—but as far as I am concerned we have a number of producers and other personnel in RTE who do a fine job considering the resources available to them. However, I should like to ventilate one or two causes of concern to me, not in any sense of wishing to restrict the freedom which RTE people have but as an honest expression of concern about the way some of the moneys which we might vote might be used. I ask those concerned to consider my remarks as respectful suggestions rather than as anything stronger.
Despite the general level of satisfaction expressed in the House about the operations of RTE, there is occasionally the major pornography of violence on the media. In a matter of two or three minutes I should like to say to RTE that when they get these moneys they might consider the impact of some of the programmes which come to the network on the minds of young people.