I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes that under the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960, as amended by the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Act, 1976
(i) it is the duty of the R.T.E. Authority to ensure that the broadcast treatment of current affairs, including matters which are either of public controversy or the subject of current public debate, is fair to all interests concerned and that the broadcast matter is presented in an objective and impartial manner and without any expression of the Authority's own views and
(ii) subject to certain procedures being complied with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission may investigate and decide on complaints, inter alia, that in broadcasting a programme the Authority did not comply with one or more of the statutory requirements referred to.”
Deputy Leyden is a gregarious fellow, a funny fellow and even a lovable fellow but almost his entire contribution has been totally irrelevant to the motion. Some of his contribution was, I have to say with regret, disgraceful. The Acting Chairman on three occasions asked him to address himself to the motion, as you did too. That would be funny if broadcasting was not such a serious subject. In his first contribution as shadow Minister for Posts and Telegraphs not only has he let himself down, but he has let the House down.
I want to deal briefly with the appointment of Deputy Nealon as the second Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The announcement by the Taoiseach which Deputy Leyden obviously has not read is as follows:
I beg leave to announce for the information of the Dáil that, on 18 February 1983 the Government appointed Deputy Ted Nealon, Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, to be Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs also with special responsibility for radio and television.
The exercise of the responsibilities allocated to the Minister of State will, in accordance with statute and practice, be subject to the general superintendence and control of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, who will remain fully responsible for all the departmental powers and duties.
I wanted to put that on record in view of the fact that Deputy Leyden had not read it and he asked if the Taoiseach had taken over responsibility for RTE and to whom Deputy Nealon was answerable. It is very clear that that part of Deputy Leyden's contribution was mischievous and nothing else.
The motion says:
That Dáil Éireann calls on the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to ensure that, in accordance with the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Act, 1976 the broadcast treatment of current affairs by Radio Telefís Éireann, including matters which are either of public controversy or the subject of current public debate, is fair to all interests concerned and that the broadcast matter is presented in an objective and impartial manner.
He is calling on me, the Minister, to ensure impartiality but the burden of his speech in so far as it relates to the motion was denouncing me and the Minister of State for alleged interference. The motion calls for us to interfere but the Act says "it is the responsibility of the Authority" and the Minister has no responsibility. That is why I was very careful of the words I used when I framed my amendment, which I moved earlier. It is vitally important that politicians, of whatever party, should not interfere with RTE in the discharge of their duty. The only political correspondence there has been with RTE since the change of Government, as far as I am aware, has been from Deputy Leyden who, in his first few days as Shadow Minister for Posts and Telegraphs complained about programmes in his first few days as Shadow Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, not once but twice.
Deputy Leyden several times referred to the Minister of State, Deputy Nealon, as the Minister for RTE. He is not Minister of State for RTE; he is Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs with responsibility for radio, television and all broadcasting matters. I want to explain the reason for that. When I was appointed Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and Minister for Transport, during the first few weeks in office I assessed the range of my responsibilities, looked at the problems and the issues, and examined the history of those issues. It is no reflection on any of my predecessors to say that the area of broadcasting had suffered from Ministerial neglect because of pressure of other duties.
Deputy Leyden was Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and the Department of Transport and was fully preoccupied with duties dealing with post and telephones and no concentrated attention was given to broadcasting. Because of the number of serious developments in this area and because I knew I would not have the time to give broadcasting the priority it deserves, I asked the Taoiseach if he would consider appointing an additional Minister of State at the Department to give broadcasting and the development and problems of broadcasting the priority they have not been getting in the last few years.
For example major developments in satellite television open up enormous opportunities and risks for this country and grave questions in this area may have to be answered very urgently. That subject alone warrants the appointment of a Minister of State. Second, there is the very unsatisfactory situation in local broadcasting — illegal pirate stations on the one hand and the lack of progress in getting legal local broadcasting going. Third, there is cable television and deflector television. Fourth, there are many other areas ancillary to broadcasting which need attention. These are major issues to be addressed and that is why I asked the Taoiseach for a Minister of State to help give these matters the priority they deserve. I am happy the Taoiseach and the Government were able to accede to my request and that Deputy Nealon, a distinguished broadcaster and journalist of repute, was appointed Minister of State. I look forward to working with him to give broadcasting the priority it deserves and, hopefully, before a year has elapsed we will have seen the worth of his appointment.
I think it appropriate in discussing this motion to review briefly the circumstances in which the statutory duty referred to came to be placed on the RTE Authority. From 1926 to 1960 broadcasting in this country was under the direct control of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. In 1953, however, the then Minister, Mr. Erskine Childers, undertook a radical reorganisation whereby Comhairle Radio Éireann was appointed to operate and effectively control the broadcasting service. In 1960 the independence granted to Radio Éireann, as it then was, was put on a proper legal footing with the establishment of the new Authority under the Broadcasting Authority Act of that year.
Section 18(1) of the 1960 Act stated that
It shall be the duty of the Authority to secure that, when it broadcasts any information, news or feature which relates to matters of public controversy or is the subject of current public debate, the information, news or feature is presented objectively and impartially and without any expression of the Authority's own views.
In moving the Second Stage of the Bill in the Dáil on 24 February 1960, the then Minister, Mr. Michael Hilliard, made clear his, and the then Government's, views on how the duties specified for the new authority should be exercised; he said:—
In considering the structure of the organisation that should be laid down in the Bill, the Government took the view that the Authority which it is proposed to set up should be quite free to exercise its functions of providing a national service, with power of intervention by the Minister or by the Government confined to a small number of matters in which State interests must be safeguarded. The Authority will, therefore, have the maximum freedom in the matter of programmes.
He went on to say:—
It is not proposed to lay down any specific requirements as regards programme standards, apart from requiring the Authority to ensure that the general tone of programmes will be in conformity with the national aims of restoring the Irish language and preserving and strengthening the national culture. It will be left to the Authority to see that programmes are of an adequate quality, and that a proper balance between them is maintained.
There can be no doubt, from the section of the Act which I have quoted and these comments, as to where it was envisaged responsibility would lie for ensuring objectivity and impartiality in the broadcast treatment of matters of public controversy — it would lie fairly and squarely on the new Authority. That was, I believe, the accepted view also of subsequent Ministers and Governments, and I have no reason to doubt that it was also accepted by the RTE Authority.
However, that legislation did not deal explicitly with who would be arbiter on questions of objectivity and impartiality. It did not make the Minister the arbiter, but equally it did not provide any other means of deciding such questions. In the event therefore, the Minister could have been put in the position of having to make judgments on such questions. There was the danger then that Ministers could make judgments on RTE's approach to questions in which they were interested. Any such judgments could be made without a formal basis and undue pressure could be placed on the Authority to conform to a view of objectivity and impartiality particularly favourable to the Government of the day. Ultimately, this pressure could extend to dismissal of the Authority without giving any reasons.
It was because of the existence of these possibilities — and I do not suggest for a moment that such circumstances did, in fact, arise — that substantial restrictions on the powers of the Minister and clarification of the duties of the Authority were provided for in the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Act, 1976, which was when Dr. Conor Cruise-O'Brien was Minister and he, too, was despised by Deputy Leyden, very wrongly. Under this Act, section 18 of the 1960 Act was amended and placed a statutory duty on the Authority to ensure that all news broadcast by them is reported in an objective and impartial manner, that the broadcast treatment of current affairs is fair to all interests concerned and is presented in an objective and impartial manner and without any expression of the Authority's own views and that any material published by the Authority is similarly objective and impartial.
There is, however, an important qualification in the section to the effect that, should it prove impracticable in a single programme to apply the provision, two or more related broadcasts may be considered as a whole, provided that the broadcasts are transmitted within a reasonable period.
The same section specifically prohibited the Authority from including in any of their broadcasts anything which might reasonably be regarded as being likely to promote, or incite to crime, or as tending to undermine the authority of the State and requires the Authority, in their programmes and in the means employed to make such programmes not to unreasonably encroach on the privacy of an individual.
I believe that the duty as it is now stated in the Act is a fair and satisfactory one in terms of the obligations which it places on the Authority, and of the protection which it gives to those whose views have to be fairly presented. I take it from the terms of the motion as presented, and from what Deputy Leyden has said, that he has no dispute with that view. It appears, however, that he is dissatisfied with the manner in which the duty placed on the Authority has been fulfilled.
The Deputy's speech raises the central issue of how complaints of alleged breaches of the statutory duty on the Authority are to be handled. This issue is dealt with by sections 18A to 18C of the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960 (which were inserted by Section 4 of the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Act, 1976). Under these sections, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission were established to investigate and decide on complaints in regard to alleged breaches of the requirements of objectivity and impartiality, the prohibition from broadcasting or propagating anything which may reasonably be regarded as being likely to promote, or incite to crime, or as tending to undermine the authority of the State, the prohibition from unreasonably encroaching upon the privacy of the individual, the requirement to observe directions issued under section 31(1) of the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960, and the Authority's code of advertising standards. The Act provides that a complaint, prior to its being made to the commission, should first be made to the authority within 30 days of the cause of complaint.
The Act also provides that as soon as may be after they decide on a complaint made under the Act, the commission shall send to the person making the complaint and the Authority a statement in writing of their decision, and the Authority shall inform the commission in writing whether or not they accept the decision. The commission publish their decisions unless they consider it inappropriate to do so and submit an annual report of their activities, which is laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas.
It is perhaps worth drawing attention to the differences in approach to the functions of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission as compared with their opposite number in the UK. A Broadcasting Complaints Commission was not established by legislation in the UK until 1981. There had been informal committees, established by the Broadcasting Authorities in existence prior to then. The UK Commission is only empowered to consider and adjudicate on complaints of unjust or unfair treatment in programmes broadcast or unwarranted infringement of privacy in, or in connection with the obtaining of material included in, programmes broadcast. A complaint may only be entertained by the commission if it is made by the person affected, or by a person authorised by him to make the complaint for him. The commission established here under the Act of 1976 have, as I have indicated, broader functions, although they remain particular to the specific statutory duties placed on RTE. In this way, they represent a reasonable balance between the needs of the public and of the broadcasters.
I take it then from the legislation governing RTE's activities that the RTE Authority are fully responsible for the achievement of fairness and the exercise of balance in their broadcast treatment of current affairs. That responsibility is not diluted in any way by any secondary responsibility on the Minister or the Government or, indeed, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission to ensure such fairness or balance; there is no such secondary responsibility. Complaints about alleged failures in such matters must be made to the Authority. It would be reasonable to expect the Authority, on receipt of any complaint, to examine whether there was any failure on their part, or on the part of their staff. I would hope that the Authority would be able to arrive at a correct conclusion in their examination of most complaints, but there must, of course, be a number of occasions when their conclusions are not agreed with by the complainant or others. The authority cannot, in every case, be the best arbiter of whether they are fulfilling the duties placed upon them. In cases where there is still disagreement as between the views of the complainant and the authority, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission are available to give an independent view on the subject of complaint.
The Broadcasting Complaints Commission accordingly represent the proper method for dealing with complaints regarding alleged breaches of duty in the matters referred to. The motion as presented, and Deputy Leyden's comments in proposing it, imply that I, as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs should determine whether or not RTE are meeting their statutory duty in matters of this kind and should bring pressures to bear on the Authority. I cannot agree with this view. It does not seem proper to me that a Minister should be called upon to judge whether the authority act fairly or objectively or impartially in matters of public controversy or debate. Were I to act in this way, I would be going against both the letter and the spirit of the Broadcasting Authority Acts. It is quite clear to me that the stated intention of the then Minister in 1960 to give the Authority the maximum freedom in the matter of programmes must be respected on a consistent basis, if it is to be applied at all. A freedom which subjects RTE's detailed actions to daily questioning by the Minister cannot be a real freedom, or be conducive to the aim of the Act to create a public service broadcasting organisation independent of detailed controls. Equally, the statutory facility to have complaints investigated by an independent commission must be exercised consistently. It would be unacceptable to insist that some complaints should be processed in the statutory way, while in other cases the RTE Authority should be subject to ministerial pressure or interference.
It may be asked, what happens if the RTE Authority are so careless of their duty as to allow repeated unfair and imbalanced use of their programmes to project certain viewpoints or to ignore others? What if they pass off complaints as being groundless or unsustainable? And what if they then proceed to ignore decisions of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission which find complaints about their actions to be well founded? I have to say that I would think it most unlikely that such a series of eventualities could occur. The Authority are, after all, a group of respected individuals appointed by the Government to represent the public trust. It seems unlikely that they would ignore legitimately expressed concern about the exercise of activities with which they are entrusted. But it may be claimed perhaps that the authority themselves are unable to ensure proper control of activities because of the part-time involvement of the members in their business? This can hardly be the case; the Authority set down guidelines for the achievement of the statutory requirements upon them and exercise their functions through their staff; the staff are accountable to the Authority and they also are unlikely to ignore criticism. That is not to say that there will not be occasional lapses at one level or another; such lapses must be inevitable from time to time in any organisation. However, decisions of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, when published, create a strong moral pressure on the authority and their staff to act to correct any failures to which their attention is drawn.
The commission do not exercise any specific sanctions. This is deliberate. The then Minister, speaking on the Second Stage debate in the Dáil on 6 November 1975, dealt with this point:
The complaints commission were not intended to have any sanctions which they could apply. Their sole sanction lies in their finding. The Government take the view that any Authority are likely to be a responsible body which will not take lightly the findings of a commission if the commission find there is something wrong. Of course, the ultimate sanction is there; and if an Authority — I think this unlikely — is constantly being found to be in breach by the complaints commission and if they blithely ignore the commission's findings, that fact will have to be considered when the Authority come up for reappointment. It might have to be considered even before that. In that unlikely event there is an implicit sanction behind the complaints commission, but it is implicit only. The complaints commission have only the right to find or not to find that there is something wrong.
In all these circumstances, it seems to me that the natural tendency will be for the Authority to act to meet their duties and certainly not to be dismissive of them. Having established that, it is fair to return to the question — what happens if, unlikely as it may seem, the Authority do repeatedly fail to fulfil their statutory duties? It has to be accepted that in circumstances where the Authority are shown to have failed repeatedly to meet their obligations, the Minister must formally intervene, in the public interest. I hope it will be clear from my comments that I think the circumstances justifying such an intervention would be quite exceptional.
I believe that I have dealt adequately with the circumstances in which the statutory duties placed on the RTE Authority were created, the manner in which it was envisaged they would be exercised and the way in which their performance can be assessed. I would like to turn now to my view of the relationship between Governments and broadcasters. It seems to me to be one of the burdens of office, which is not shared with those in Opposition, that with a defined and limited responsibility for broadcasting matters goes a limitation on the comment which can be passed on the exercise of responsibility by others, particularly by the Broadcasting Authority and broadcasting staff. This limitation arises because of the confidence and trust that has to exist between the public and the broadcaster. The broadcaster, be it the Authority or the individual staff member serving the Authority in the performance of their functions, must have the support of the public for what they communicate; if the public disbelieve the communication, or consider it to be biased or tending to misrepresent, they will withdraw their confidence from the Authority and the service they provide. If the Authority believe they have lost the support of the public they can lose confidence and, with it, the ability to communicate successfully with their potential audience. The Minister, who ultimately expresses the public will, in the exceptional circumstances I have outlined, serves a critical role in this relationship between the public and the broadcaster. I am constrained, therefore, in my comments upon the details of Deputy Leyden's complaints for this reason also.
There is always a particular sensitivity in the relationship between politicians and broadcasters because there is such an interdependence of each upon the other. Politicians, whether in Government or Opposition, depend upon broadcasters, and, of course, the other media, to relay information; the media, have the possibility of analysing and interpreting the information they receive and the possibility of seeking more information than is given freely. The media generally are dependent on a reliable flow of information to report and comment upon. The ephemeral nature of broadcasting and its undoubtedly powerful influence, together with the manner in which it is organised, seem to accentuate the sensitivity which exists.
Considering the natural sensitivity that must exist between politicians of all persuasions and broadcasters there have been remarkably few instances of controversy about RTE's treatment of news and current affairs. There have been, of course, some exceptions but I do not intend to re-open old controversies. The exceptions, in themselves, prove that there is a healthy tension and that RTE's treatment of current affairs is not subdued. I think it is fair to say that in recent years there has been minimal controversy between politicians and broadcasters. I attribute this situation, in part, at least, to the clarification of roles and duties enshrined in the 1976 amending legislation. It is also fair to say that the RTE Authority has, in general, carried out its role as trustee of the broadcasting services for the nation.
Earlier in my speech I referred to the important statutory qualification regarding RTE's obligation to be objective and impartial. The 1976 Act states that should it prove impracticable, in a single programme, to achieve balance two or more related broadcasts may be considered as a whole provided they are transmitted within a reasonable period. This is obviously an important qualification so far as RTE's nightly current affairs programme is concerned. It would hardly be reasonable and probably not make good television that every programme should consist of a straight debate between two opposing points of view. Too much emphasis on balance within the single programme could produce a result which confuses the viewer and produces more heat than light.
A former Director-General of the BBC, Sir Hugh Greene, has been quoted as saying:
We have to balance different points of view in our programmes but not necessarily within each individual programme. Nothing is more stultifying than the current affairs programme in which all the opposing opinions cancel each other out. Sometimes one has to use that method but in general it makes for greater liveliness and impact if the balance can be achieved over a period, perhaps within a series of related programmes.
His remarks are particularly apposite in the present case. Must RTE give a spokesman for every point of view an opportunity to contribute to each programme on every topic? How enlightening is that likely to be for the viewer? I do not want to answer these questions but they are fair questions for the Authority to consider.
My general feeling is that Deputy Leyden has, in the presentation of this case, disclosed an undue and perhaps rushed sensitivity. I do not intend to argue the details of his complaints but I must say that I could not accept the essence of some at least of the points he makes. That said, I do not have any doubt that the RTE Authority will pay particular attention to the points he has made and that other speakers will make in the course of this debate. I am confident that the Authority will act in any cases where there is justifiable cause for concern, as I believe they have done to date, and they will have my full support and encouragement in their actions.
A former Leader of Deputy Leyden's party, a former Taoiseach, Mr. Séan Lemass, referred once to Radio Éireann as an arm of Government. As Minister for Posts and Telegraphs I oppose that view completely. It is vital that RTE, in the discharge of their duties, be removed completely from political interference or pressure. It is very important that Government be particularly sensitive to the need not to interfere unduly or pressure RTE. But the same onus rests on all members of all political parties. There is a tendency amongst politicians to be too sensitive, a tendency amongst political supporters to want to influence programmes in their direction. In my view that is wrong. Politicians of all parties, should keep out of broadcasting; certainly they should refrain from endeavouring to influence individual programme or series of programmes.
I am glad that Deputy Leyden's motion afforded me an opportunity to address this most important subject now. I thank Deputy Leyden for his good wishes on my appointment. In return may I wish him a very happy and long period as shadow Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. I am sure we shall get on very well together in the interests of broadcasting and other postal and telegraph matters.
