I am coming to that later. Broadcasting legislation should facilitate the provision of services in every area of the country, not set out to limit the availability of those services. The Opposition Bill provides for Exchequer funding of up to £10 million for services. Why should the people of Donegal or Longford or Kerry have to provide those funds so that Dublin, Cork and Limerick can have more radio services?.
This Bill does nothing to resolve the problem resulting from the existence of illegal radio stations in practically every county in Ireland. It ignores the interest which is clearly there for local radio services throughout the country and instead concentrates on commercial local radio, which of its nature can only be viable in large cities. That is not a satisfactory approach.
I would like now to turn my attention to Deputy Liam Fitzgerald's contribution in support of this Bill in the House last week. The main thrust of his argument was to "knock" RTE and by comparison praise the services being provided by the pirate stations. Deputy Fitzgerald, of course neglected to place on record some facts before he began to compare RTE and the pirate stations. For instance he neglected to point out that RTE have to pay their staff a proper living wage, they have to pay royalties for music material used on their programmes, pay for their news coverage, and so on. The pirates, by comparison pay very poor wages to their staff in return for long hours, with no security, while the bosses cream off the profits.
If the Deputies opposite feel that the semi-State structures of RTE are out of tune with changing circumstances, then perhaps they might be reminded that the level of income on which RTE were compelled to survive was also out of line with changing circumstances. The livelihood of the national broadcasting service comes from advertising and revenue collected through television licence fees. From December 1980, when they granted an 18 per cent increase in licence fees, until April 1983, when the present Government had a chance to rectify things, RTE were slowly being starved of finance. Deputy Leyden opposite watches for every opportunity to accuse my colleague, the Minister of State Deputy Nealon, of muzzling RTE. TO my mind, the gradual strangulation of RTE by refusing them finance to operate services was a much more serious threat to the freedom of the national broadcasting organisation.
What better way to influence broadcasters than to starve them into submission? In the Opposition's period in Government RTE were being squeezed from two sides. On the one hand, they were being beggared by refusing them a licence fee increase, and on the other hand, pirate stations were allowed the freedom of the air. Some of these pirate stations are now being held up as shining examples of all that is good in Irish broadcasting.
I read with interest Deputy Leyden's reference to the amount of time a Fianna Fáil committee gave to preparing this legislation. Indeed, it speaks volumes for Fianna Fáil committees if the result of their considerable efforts produces the erasure of the word "sound" from the 1981 Local Radio Bill, and one additional sentence consisting of 14 words. The Opposition's belated haste in producing this Bill and their assertion that local stations will be operational by the end of June are noteworthy. This latter claim, of course, is not realistic and the Minister of State, Deputy Nealon, has given the lie to it in no uncertain terms. By rushing ahead and not giving the concept of local radio the attention it deserves, by setting over-hasty deadlines, the Bill is giving the advantage to the private interest groups already broadcasting illegally or at work preparing their applications and proposals. Again community groups and community interests will be sufferers. There is no doubt in my mind that one effect of rushing forward the Bill is to cover illegal broadcasting stations with the cloak of legitimacy.
The Opposition have skipped very quickly over any reference they have made to the very serious problems which pirate radio stations have caused. They have concentrated instead on what they see as the good points of pirate radio. I know that some of the present stations have some good points. But it is difficult to balance those against the very severe problem which some of them have caused to very important radio frequencies.
Quite a number of these problems have already been detailed by my colleagues the Minister of State and the Minister in this debate. I regret to have to say that yet another extremely dangerous problem has come to light.
Sunshine Radio returned to the air last weekend after losing the High Court case which it took against the Minister. Within hours of its resuming broadcasting it was causing severe interference to an international distress and calling frequency. This frequency at 500KHz is used internationally by ships to transmit distress calls. Ships are required to keep a constant watch on this frequency so that an early alarm can be raised in the event of an emergency at sea. The interference in this case almost certainly covered the whole of Dublin Bay and possibly far beyond. Sunshine Radio was positively identified as the source of the interference.
In view of the use of Dublin Bay by passenger and car ferries and other sea traffic the consequences of an unnoticed distress call take on frightening proportions. When the interference was brought to the attention of Sunshine Radio they were unaware of it. The station operators were informed that the only way to ensure that this interference ceased was for the station to close down. They did then close down their medium wave transmitter but they continue to broadcast on VHF. I need hardly say that problems of this nature cannot be allowed to recur.
The provisions of section 18 of the Bill would be quite inappropriate for local television services. This section requires local broadcasting services to maintain high standards in all respects, to offer a broad range of news, information and entertainment consistent with the local character of the service, to require different stations not to broadcast identical or similar material to an extent inconsistent with the local character of services and to utilise to the greatest possible extent Irish produced, recorded, published and performed material. Such provisions, while being perhaps appropriate for radio services, take no account of the cost of television services. How could any local television service afford a range of programming on those lines? Ulster television and BBC Northern Ireland produce significantly less than 10 per cent of their total programming locally; all of the rest of their programming is taken from the UK national networks or is imported. Where would all the local television programming come from here to enable the Authority to fulfil the obligations placed upon it by section 18 of this Bill? In effect the provisions in the Bill would be unworkable in relation to local television services.
Deputy Leyden, in the course of his speech, referred to the problem of the deflector or rebroadcasting systems being used in certain parts of the country to re-broadcast BBC and ITV television signals and suggested that this Bill will allow the proposed Authority to investigate the situation regarding these broadcasting stations and provide an opportunity for licensing. Once again the Deputy shows an extraordinary lack of understanding of the provisions in his own Bill, this despite apparently months of work. The Authority would have no power to license anything. The Opposition suggest that the problems associated with what are called deflectors can be resolved by their Bill. I am sure that they are well aware that this is not the case.
Deputy Wilson, when he was Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, made clear the serious problems associated with licensing rebroadcasting stations. One major problem is that rebroadcasting of British television signals would require, under Irish copyright law, the agreement of the broadcasting Authorities concerned. Those Authorities have repeatedly made clear their interest in reserving that copyright. I am not aware of any country in Europe which has succeeded in reaching agreement for the wholesale rebroadcasting of foreign television signals. I wonder what magical powers the Authority proposed under this Bill will possess bearing in mind that attempts which have been made at the highest level here and attempts elsewhere to reach such agreements have given rise to enormously complex and difficult problems and have come to nought.
It has been claimed that various copyright problems will have to be resolved in any event with the development of satellite television services. Satellite services will undoubtedly be available to viewers throughout this country within a matter of years. The satellite services will not of themselves solve copyright problems; rather they will avoid them, because viewers will be able to receive foreign signals directly. The problem at the moment is that they do not receive the signals directly but rather they are rebroadcast. It is this rebroadcasting which is the main stumbling block in copyright terms. There is a second constraint on widespread television rebroadcasting. That is the question of availability of suitable frequencies. Broadcasting frequencies are allocated under international agreement; the number of frequencies available to this country are not enough for the widespread rebroadcasting of four British television services. It should also be borne in mind that the continued availability of these signals can never be guaranteed. It is always open to the British Authorities to alter the technical characteristics of their television transmitter network for domestic reasons. Any such alteration could effectively wipe out fringe reception of these signals where re-broadcasting systems operate.
The suggestion by the Opposition that their Bill will allow the licensing of rebroadcasting is therefore entirely misleading. It is in any event ludicrous having regard to the terms of the Bill itself. For example, how could the requirements of objectivity and impartiality in news and current affairs provided for in section 19 of the Bill be met by an Irish Authority in respect of British television services? How could the Authority ensure that such television services have regard, for example, to Irish cultural traditions or utilise to the greatest possible extent Irish produced, recorded, published and performed material as provided for in section 18. What would the Broadcasting Complaints Commission do with complaints against British programmes rebroadcast by the Authority. Here again the lack of thought in the hasty introduction of this Bill is self-evident.
