I suggest that with Amendment No. 8, amendments Nos. 9, 28, 30 and 50 should also be discussed as they are consequential. Is that agreed? It is important you should consider these matters. It is your choice as to whether they be taken separately.
Broadcasting Bill, 1990: Report Stage (Resumed).
Amendment No. 7 not moved.
I am agreeable to that arrangement.
I would say that in the event of certain amendments being carried, other amendments may well be negatived and fall, and you will have no chance of discussion.
We are very anxious to facilitate you.
Thank you. It is immaterial to the Chair.
Let me thank the Deputies on this side of the House for being so co-operative in regard to my amendments when they never are in relation to their own. I want to take these amendments separately, in view of the contemptible opportunism of Deputies near me.
It is immaterial to the Chair. The Chair merely suggests these things for efficiency and to avoid duplication of debate and, broadly speaking, to ensure that our business is as streamlined as possible.
I regret that Deputy Mitchell should feel that he had to use the words "contemptible opportunism". I would assure you, Sir, that the reason we opposed the grouping yesterday evening was because of the brevity of the replies we were getting to the initial amendments. As the debate wore on we felt that we were more satisfied with some of the replies that were being made in terms of the adequacy of the reply. It is purely to address the question of time that we acceded to your suggestion. If Deputy Mitchell finds that he cannot accept that, there will be no attempt from this side to impose any such thing on him.
The Chair does his best in such matters. I take it then that the amendments will be taken separately.
I move amendment No. 8:
In page 4, between lines 6 and 7, to insert the following:
"2. —(1) The Minister shall appoint a review body to be known as the Broadcasting Policy Review Council (in this Act referred to as the ‘Broadcasting Council').
(2) The Broadcasting Council shall consist of representatives of the Authority, the Independent Radio and Television Commission, radio and television broadcasting contractors, advertisers, newspapers, faculties of communications in the institutes of higher learning, the trade unions, the Irish language and such other persons as the Minister thinks fit.
(3) There shall not be more than 18 members on the Broadcasting Council.
(4) The Broadcasting Council shall make an annual report to both Houses of the Oireachtas including its recommendations for changes in broadcasting policy.
(5) Its remit shall include consideration of all relevant questions affecting community, local, national and international broadcasting including funding, competition (internal and external), balance standards (including standards relating to good taste, violence, sex and language), public order, copyright, performing rights, home production (including independent home production), Irish language culture and news content.".
I propose that a broadcasting policy review council be set up as a feature of the future arrangements in relation to broadcasting. The way things have developed in relation to broadcasting since the beginning of this year highlights the need for a body to look at broadcasting issues in a reflective and detached way. There is a need for a body outside the political arena to listen to the views of those groups that have a legitimate interest.
We now have a fourth set of proposals from the Minister in the space of two months. None of these proposals was discussed with many of the interest groups involved. They certainly were not discussed with the RTE Authority, the Institute of Advertisers, the Association of Advertising Practitioners nor with any other directly involved interest groups. Given the level of correspondence that I and other Deputies have received, it is clear that the Minister and the Government have refused to meet with the interest groups to hear their point of view. I know that the advertising groups concerned have not only sought a meeting with the Minister for Communications but with the Minister for Industry and Commerce who, one would think, would have a direct interest as the Minister responsible for competition and for prices. Yet he would not meet any of these interest groups.
So we have proposals, amended proposals, amendments to the amended proposals, addenda to the amendments to the amended proposals, all without the slightest consultation with people who are vitally interested. If the Minister was so sure of his ground and so anxious to do the right thing for broadcasting, if he was motivated only by the concern to lay a permanent foundation for vibrant and lasting broadcasting in the independent sector, surely he would have had the confidence and, indeed, the intelligence, to seek and take on board the views of people who are directly involved and others not directly involved but who have an interest.
Apart from those who are directly involved, whom the Minister might wish to fob off on the basis that they have a vested interest — and I suppose it would be unrealistic to ask the Minister to hear these people and then give them everything they were looking for as if their's was a detached view of events — there are other independent people who have no vested interest. For example, the engineers get no direct benefit from this legislation. Clearly however, they do have an interest. In the editorial which is carried on page 3 of the July edition of The Engineers Journal, they are very clear on the matter. The editorial which takes up the entire page states:
Everyone will criticise RTE at some time or other — for one reason or another. That is only natural. However, the criticism now will be as nothing compared to the criticism which will accrue if the national service is spancelled as is proposed.
A limited number of excellent services is far better than a diversity of sub-standard services and that applies in no uncertain manner to broadcasting. The objective nationally must be to have a first class national service which will be expected to serve the country with the highest standards of broadcasting. But more than that, it should also continue to be an enterprising organisation fully capable of expanding and competing in a very demanding market.
The editorial, which is extremely constructive, continues in that vein. I would refer it to the Minister for his attention because I assume, on the basis of his continuing dogmatism in relation to this legislation, he has not read it.
I would now like to quote from a letter dated 9 July from The Marketing Society, which has been circulated to Deputies in the last few days. It states:
While the Society agrees wholeheartedly with the objectives as stated in the Minister's speech to the Dáil on 7 June last, some of the aims intended to serve these objectives seem, in our professional opinion, unlikely to achieve their intentions.
Firstly, the effectiveness of the Minister's intended orders, in particular the "capping" of RTE advertising levels, may well lead to quite a different outcome to that intended by his objectives. It is important that the mechanics of marketing and advertising practice should be clearly understood before assessing this impact. It is quite a complex business but the essential facts would appear to be:
(1) If the amount of advertising on RTE is limited, there are two immediate effects:
(a) the cost of advertising rises, as RTE must ensure that it sells all of its time to maximise its permitted revenue;
(b) advertisers who cannot obtain time on RTE will look to other relevant media instead.
(2) Any price rise will tend to squeeze the smaller advertiser out of the market in favour of the big-budget international marketing company; this can have a detrimental effect on the growing sector of new, small Irish companies; this would appear to be contrary to the Minister's stated objectives.
(3) An advertiser, who cannot obtain time on RTE, but has the funds to advertise, is much more likely to seek an alternative broadcast medium. The largest share of this is for television and an advertiser who has a TV commercial available (often produced outside this country and therefore bearing no direct cost to the Irish marketing company) will select the next best TV alternative.
The only serious alternative is UTV. Two out of three sets in the Republic can receive UTV programmes and this rises to 85 per cent in Dublin. The likely effect of "capping" therefore is to drive money out of the economy and into Northern Ireland. There is no guarantee that it will re-circulate among the other Irish media.
(4) The availability of TV3 still appears to be at least a year away; after that TV3 will have to build a reputation for its programmes and prove that it has a large enough viewership to justify advertisers spending money with the station. This could take many years to develop, in the meantime UTV will have benefitted from the "capping" and will fight hard to maintain the opportunity handed to it.
(5) The reduction in RTE earnings and the shift of advertising money from the State to Northern Ireland will have serious consequences for employment in RTE, marketing companies, market research organisations and advertising agencies. This would seem to be in direct contravention to the Minister's objectives.
The letter goes on to say:
The Society would like to draw attention to the EC Directive on TV Advertising which recommends an average of nine minutes per hour for TV advertising, with a maximum of 12 minutes in any one hour. This is significantly higher than the limits the Minister seeks to impose. Finally, Section 4 of the Bill——
section 2 as it is drafted at present
— does seem to present an open gate to a Minister to introduce orders limiting the freedom of broadcasters to operate. The Irish Law Times has already devoted its most recent editorial to outlining why it thinks this action may be unconstitutional.
It is hoped that the importance of these points will be taken into account by all concerned and that Section 4 and its implications will be resolved in the interest of the Irish economy and not become the possible reason for an important loss of revenue and employment within the Irish market.
They are two quite separate views from those expressed by everybody on this side of the House, and indeed by many people directly involved in broadcasting. Despite this unanimous view of the professional bodies, the Minister is proceeding with the legislation. This is no way to proceed with legislation of such importance. There is a clear and definite need for a calm review which would include representatives of the legitimate interests concerned, professional and competent people who have no direct vested interests but who have the competence to assess the whole question of funding, the marketplace, the amount of advertising funds now available, the extent to which they will be available in the future, the extent to which they will be eroded or otherwise by foreign-based competition, with ever-growing transnational broadcasting, and all the other questions we list in the amendment.
I would urge the Minister even at this stage, and even if he is intent on proceeding with the proposals in the rest of the Bill, to accept the idea of a broadcasting review council. We suggest such a council should consist of representatives of the RTE Authority, the Independent Radio and Television Commission, radio and television broadcasting contractors, advertisers, newspapers, faculties of communications in the institutes of higher learning, the trade unions, the Irish language and such other persons as the Minister thinks fit. We also propose that the broadcasting council should report to both Houses of the Oireachtas whatever the changes, if any, it recommends in broadcasting policy.
We propose in our amendment that the remit of the broadcasting council shall include consideration of all relevant questions affecting community, local, national and international broadcasting, including funding, competition — both internal and external, balance, standards — including standards relating to good taste, violence, sex and language, public order, copyright, performing rights, home production — including independent home production — Irish language, culture and news content. I cannot pretend that this proposal is original. This is how other administrations do things. They set up commissions to examine in detail the present state of the industry, all relevant factors, including prospective factors or developments, and made recommendations. As I have said on Second Stage of this debate, in Britain there has been the Peacock report and the report of the Select Committee on Broadcasting of the House of Commons, and they then proceeded to a White Paper on broadcasting which set out the general views of the administration, so as to allow the general public and the interest groups an opportunity of commenting on those proposals.
The situation here is very different. Nobody, with the possible exception of the national newspapers of Ireland, has had any input into this legislation. The Minister has simply refused to see the other interested parties. The changes that have been made, were made without consulting the interest groups directly involved which is a sure recipe for disaster. I want to predict, Sir, that If the Minister continues with his proposals as they stand, it is very clear that a further broadcasting Bill will be brought before this House before the end of next year in order to put right many of the things which are being put wrong by this legislation. It seems to me that the Minister will live to regret the hasty and ill considered proposals which are before the House and which are the fourth different set of proposals he has brought before us in the past eight weeks.
It is 16 years since we have had a Broadcasting Review Council. The last time we had a report on the future of broadcasting was in 1974. However, there has been a revolution in communications technology since that time. We did not have satellite broadcasting 16 years ago. In the meantime, satellite broadcasting, both direct broadcasting satellites and indirect broadcasting satellites have been set in place and, in fact, the great majority of the Irish population have access to several satellite services, in addition to the four British terrestrial services and the two Irish terrestrial services. We also know that several other satellite channels are planned and the UK Government have proposed a fifth terrestrial television channel, TV5. We know also that there are proposals for at least three other British satellite channels.
The nature of broadcasting is such that we cannot detach ourselves from the world around us and this is particularly the case with British broadcasting because first they are our nearest neighbours and second they speak the same language. We in Ireland have a different experience from Europe where the impact of French television in Germany is greatly diminished by the fact that many Germans are not proficient in French, but we do not have that automatic defence mechanism because we speak English. The Irish audience have available and will have available all the English language services emanating from Great Britain at present and in the near future. This has an enormous potential impact on the market share of Irish television channels. If the market share of the Irish television channels diminishes, there is a good chance that their share of the advertising cake will diminish. Indeed, I contend that the Irish advertising cake will be diminished by diversion to London or Belfast, particularly London where advertising films can be made and then booked on the new commercial or satellite channels, which will have a growing penetration of the Irish market.
The Marketing Society in a letter, from which I have quoted earlier, indicate that two out of three households in the Republic already receive UTV and that 85 per cent of the households in the greater Dublin area already receive UTV. This number will increase particularly as the availability of cable television and MMDS increases. Only a fool would ignore the potential impact of these developments, that can be foreseen, on the advertising pool within the Republic. To proceed to restrict RTE now on the basis this should help a third Irish Television channel, which will be set up sometime in the future, seems to me to be an absurdity in the absence of any study, research or independent consideration of the matter.
While funding is central to the viability, stability and continuation of stations in the future, it is not the only question that has to be considered in the light of the increasing trans-national nature of broadcasting. I suggest that other factors will have to be taken into consideration such as consumer rights. How can we protect and enforce consumer rights under our law on advertising emanating from foreign based satellite channels? What are the implications for consumer rights of the increasing availability of foreign based stations carrying advertising? We also have to examine the question of copyright and the fees for performing rights of actors in this new international situation? Will we have to pay more in future for the privilege of receiving these foreign based channels? If so how is it proposed to pay for the performing rights? What other implications arise from the increasing penetration of foreign based channels especially if they are carried by cable or by MMDS? What are the financial implications for Irish viewers in the future in relation to performing rights fees in view of the fact that many of the signals are carried by cable or in the future will be carried by MMDS? It would be wrong to pretend that there will be no charge for rebroadcasting these signals; there will be as there cannot be a legal licence to rebroadcast if the licence does not cover our international obligations to pay performing rights fees. If the Government were to proceed without considering these issues I know there would be a writ in the High Court, if there has not already been one, in relation to these matters. These issues need to be discussed and teased out. The potential viewers need to know what it will cost to have a MMDS or cable system which will carry the additional channels and which may cost the viewer dearly in the end.
The internationalisation of broadcasting also raises questions of what is considered good taste and acceptable standards in relation to violence, sex or language. There already seems to be a problem in relation to the amount of violence on television. School teachers have told me that the level to which school children copy television programmes in the school yard is extremely worrying. We all know that there has been an increase in violence in our society but noone has really studied the extent to which this has been contributed to by violence on television. It is time such a study was carried out.
The British have begun to address this problem by setting up the British Broadcasting Standards Council. There is no similar body in Ireland. I believe the setting up of a permanent broadcasting review council such as one proposed in my amendment would be the ideal vehicle for dealing with the question of standards in broadcasting, whether they relate to violence, sex, language or general good taste.
Without being in any way prudish, I have watched early evening television programmes at home which were certainly unsuitable for viewing by my younger children. At the same time I acknowledge that the last people who should decide what should or should not be on television are politicians, who have a very direct interest in the media as part of their job. These issues should be referred to a detached independent body for recommendation on what is appropriate to be shown and when, without being totally prudish or censorious in this respect. These matters have been or are being addressed by other adminstrations, most notably by our nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom. The British Broadcasting Standards Council is a permanent feature of the British broadcasting establishment and they keep under review the question of good standards in broadcasting. Some people may say that the first thing an Irish broadcasting standards council would do is close down "The Gay Byrne Show" and "The Pat Kenny Show" because of their alleged preoccupation with sex, etc. I am not proposing that they should do this but there should be some sort of vehicle to which people who have a gripe can refer matters for consideration.
I want to refer to the question of home production. There has been a red alert from the independent producers over the past few weeks, in common with many other interest groups, in relation to the proposals contained in the Broadcasting Bill. The Minister has put down a later amendment which would appear to give them respite for one year only, in that RTE will be obliged, under the proposed amendment not yet discussed, to maintain the same percentage of home production up to the end of 1991 as they have in the past year. This proposal is ad hoc-ery at best. We should have a very clear and permanent policy on the development of independent home production.
The amendment refers also to the Irish language, culture and news content. We may have gone overboard by requiring the independent stations to devote 20 per cent of their time to news and current affairs. The 20 per cent requirement seemed too high to me at the time it was introduced and it still seems to be too high. I have proposed in a later amendment that they should devote 10 per cent of their time to news and current affairs programmes. I am not even sure if that is the right figure and I would prefer such issues to be decided on the basis of submissions, consideration and research, and recommendations made in a detached and professional way. On the face of it, it seems that the 20 per cent requirement for news and current affairs on the independent radio sector both national and local is an unnecessary encumbrance and it smacks of politicians wanting to dictate what people should listen to. This is something I have resisted for many years. It is not for us to dictate what people should listen to or view; that, in general, is decided by the viewer and listener themselves. In so far as parameters should be laid down, this should be done after detached consideration.
This is why Fine Gael have proposed the setting up of a broadcasting review council. This is not a novel concept — it is the way they do things elsewhere. The difference is that instead of having a parliamentary all-party committee on broadcasting, a commission on the future of broadcasting and several other committees who would deal with different aspects of broadcasting, as they had in the United Kingdom, together with a broadcasting standards council, we are proposing the setting-up of one standing council — they could be appointed by the Minister but representative in the main of direct interest groups and some independents — as a permanent feature of our broadcasting arrangements. The setting up of such a council is necessary, and the changes which have taken place since 1974 warrant the setting-up of such a council. The events which have taken place in the past five months indicate the urgent need for the setting-up of some stable, steady body who will make recommendations on broadcasting on an ongoing basis.
When I made a speech in Cork on 12 February I said that the Minister for Communications was planning to divert money from RTE and I called for the setting-up of a review council. I got only a one-line response from the Minister, who denied that there were any such proposals. When I raised the matter by way of parliamentary question on 22 February the Minister denied that there were any such proposals. In fact, I was asked to leave the House for making an unfounded allegation. When he made a speech on 29 March to the media conference in Cork, the Minister said he was going to do something to level the playing pitch. When I tabled my motion on broadcasting on 29 May I called for the setting-up of a broadcasting review body and asked for temporary steps to be taken to help the independent radio stations which were in trouble, on the same day the Minister came in here with his set of proposals. He said that a Bill containing certain proposals would be published later in the week. When the Bill was published four days later it contained radically different proposals from those announced by the Minister four days previously. Within a week a third set of proposals emerged, different from those contained in the Bill, even before we had debated Second Stage. Since then——
The Deputy is tending to enter into a Second Reading speech. It was quite relevant up to some time ago but now we are having a lot of extraneous matter thrown into this amendment.
The point I am making is that the chopping and changing by the Minister over the past four months, the denials, the contradictions, the amendments, the addendums——
Going back over the whole debate to that extent, Deputy Mitchell, is clearly not in order now in respect of your amendment. Your amendment is pretty wide-ranging and takes in a lot of subject matter but not to the extent that you can engage in a marathon Second Reading speech.
I am making the point — I will not labour it — that the debate started with my speech in Cork on 12 February when I proposed what is now proposed in this amendment, and there has been nothing but contradictions, denials, addendums, amendments, more amendments and more addendums by the Minister since then. This is not the way to decide broadcasting policy. This is back-of-the-envelope, top-of-the-head and seat-of-the-pants stuff. In the process there is a clear likelihood that the progress made in broadcasting will be set at nought because the Minister is about to make a hames of broadcasting.
We need a broadcasting review council to consider all these matters and to make calm and detached recommendations as the basis for a decision. We should not take decisions — in the words of the Minister for Industry and Commerce — by short cuts which are a recipe for disaster. The problem is that more short cuts have been taken since the Minister made that admission. It has now got to the stage where the debate is not about the future of broadcasting but of saving face and showing that the Government will stand firm in the face of any opposition. That is what they think but they are a weak Government who cannot acknowledge that they made a mistake. I predict that, as a result of the hames which has been made of this in the past four months by his denials, amendments, addendums and amendments to addendums, we will, within a year, be back in the House with more legislation in the area of broadcasting to try to set right many of the unforced errors contained in the Minister's proposals, amended or otherwise.
A central part of this proposal is that groups with a legitimate interest should be consulted so that their point of view would be heard. Their views do not necessarily have to be accepted in full but they should be heard. However, most of the interest groups did not have that opportunity, apart from the national newspapers. For a long time, the national newspapers have been calling for a levelling of the playing pitch in relation to funding in advertising. As Minister, I met them on several occasions and the then Taoiseach and Minister for Finance also met them. In response to their case we made a start at levelling the playing pitch where it counted by reducing the VAT rate on newspaper coverage charge from 18 per cent to 10 per cent. Our newspapers largely depend on the advertising pool — so do RTE — but they are also in direct competition with British based newspapers just as RTE are in direct competition with British based broadcasting. If we want to level the playing pitch in relation to our newspapers we should address the question of VAT because, notwithstanding the improvements brought about by the last Government in relation to VAT, our newspapers still carry a 10 per cent VAT rate on their cover charge whereas the United Kingdom based newspapers are zero rated, which gives them a 10 per cent advantage.
Moreover, advertising in Britain carries a standard 15 per cent VAT rate and in this country the rate is 23 per cent. Our newspapers are at a double disadvantage. Prior to 1985 they carried a rate of 23 per cent on cover charge and advertising so one significant step was taken to eliminate this discrepancy. It would greatly assist Irish newspapers if it was Government policy that within three, four or five years, the VAT rate would be changed in a way which would mean that Irish newspapers would not be at a disadvantage compared with their British competitors. That is a very reasonable proposal because, at present, our newspapers are at an enormous disadvantage compared to the British based newspapers.
Yesterday, I tabled a question in relation to VAT on newspapers and advertising generally and I asked what it would cost to zero rate VAT on newspaper cover charges and to bring the VAT on newspaper advertising down to 10 per cent.
Deputy Mitchell will appreciate that the Chair has given him a lot of latitude. Clearly, he is veering from the subject matter of this amendment. I plead with him to come back to the subject matter of this amendment and not to stray all over the place in generalities.
I draw your attention to the second part of my amendment——
The Deputy has heard me intervening on a number of occasions.
Subsection (2) of my amendment says that the Broadcasting Council shall consist of representatives of the Authority, the Independent Radio and Television Commission, radio and television broadcasting contractors, advertisers, newspapers, faculties of communications in the institutes of higher learning, the trade unions, the Irish language and such other persons as the Minister thinks fit. Undoubtedly, newspapers have a very direct interest in this matter. My contention is that what is proposed to be done will not assist the newspaper or, if it does assist them, it will be very marginal——
I again ask the Deputy to come back to his amendment. We cannot discuss the newspaper business in great detail now, nor the question of VAT.
Very well, of course I will obey your ruling. However, this is an important factor in looking at the whole question of funding because you cannot look at funding for broadcasting without looking at funding for newspapers and the problems surrounding it. Both, to a very large extent, depend on the same advertising pool——
Matters pertaining to VAT are the responsibility of another Minister.
I know but it would not preclude the Broadcasting Council from making recommendations in respect of that. It was felt that Irish broadcasting or newspapers were at a competitive disadvantage with their competitors across the Irish Sea. This is one of the points that a broadcasting council should and would look at. Irish newspapers have to compete with British newspapers, which have a far more beneficial tax regime and RTE and Irish broadcasting generally have to compete with — in the main — United Kingdom based broadcasting.
I am sorry to interrupt so often, Deputy, but it is clear that you are engaging in quite a lot of repetition.
A broadcasting council would look at this issue in great detail. I was making the point that all interest groups should be consulted but that the only one which was consulted were the national newspapers who have a very legitimate interest in the matter. It is my contention that any detached analysis will show that the newspapers will not benefit to any serious extent from the proposals before us and that there is a problem with the newspapers which should be addressed. However, it is certainly not being addressed in this Bill and it would be far better to refer these matters to a Broadcasting Council of the kind proposed in this amendment which could also look at other questions, as proposed in the amendment.
I hope that even if the Minister wants to proceed with the substantive proposals in the Bill in relation to capping etc. which I think is a dreadful mistake, he will accept the principle of setting up a broadcasting council. It is now timely. He has asked why I did not set one up in 1982 of 1983 when I became Minister. It was only eight years then since the previous review body had been set up. It is now 16 years; a further eight years have elapsed and it is time for an overall review of broadcasting and how it impinges on other aspects of Irish life. I hope the Minister will accept the proposal.
While I can accept the main thrust of Deputy Mitchell's amendment, there are a few points I would like to put to him which I hope he will clarify.
The nub of the amendment is that "The Minister shall appoint a review body to be known as the Broadcasting Policy Review Council (in this Act referred to as the ‘Broadcasting Council')." The method of appointment or nomination will have to be considered in view of the heated exchanges we have had over the last couple of weeks and the counter accusations regarding cronyism and clienteleism. The amendment does not address the method of appointment or nomination.
There is reference to the Irish language. Is the Deputy referring to the Gaeltacht communities? Is there provision in his amendment for representation of the Gaeltacht communities?
The amendment asks for an annual report but there is no provision in the amendment for a debate on these reports. One extra report on the shelves is of no use unless it has some teeth and leads to some form of discussion. The Deputy's amendment takes us no closer to that, I am afraid. The Minister said that at the moment we have reports on various things which have never been discussed stacked four or five feet high in various Government Departments.
There is a reference to standards of violence and various types of violence. What precisely is the Deputy saying? Is he referring to pornography? When the Deputy refers to news content is he referring to current affairs? What precisely does he hope to achieve?
The first paragraph of the amendment sets out precisely what the Deputy wants. He wants a review council. I can say he has been consistent in this regard in that he devoted some of his party's Private Members' time to the setting up of this review body for the purpose of producing a White Paper on broadcasting. This was not successful. I will say for the Minister that he has been consistent in this regard. In his speech on 10 February 1987 on the Sound Broadcasting Bill he again voiced resistance to the setting up of a commission or review body to discuss broadcasting. In view of the many doubts that have been expressed regarding the direction in which we are going in the area of broadcasting, it is absolutely essential that such a body be set up and I ask the Minister to consider that further.
I am not entirely satisfied to go down the road of this amendment but I agree in principle with what Deputy Mitchell is trying to achieve. I question his methods and there are some points I hope he will clarify. During this debate Deputy Mitchell has mentioned his speech in Cork on 12 February. I am at complete loss as to what the Deputy said on that occasion and I would appreciate even at this late stage getting a copy of that speech. There has been a great deal of reference as to what the Minister said in Cork and what Deputy Mitchell said in Cork. While I am aware of some things the Minister said on that occasion I am not familiar with what Deputy Mitchell said. This puts me at a slight disadvantage despite the fact that it happened on my own doorstep. I hope the Deputy will give me a copy of that speech so that even in the final hours of this debate I will have an opportunity to examine it.
Subsections (2), (3), (4) and (5) of the Deputy's amendment refer to the composition, duties and terms of reference of this body and merely support his call for the setting up of a review body. The Deputy mentioned during this debate the fact that he was expelled from this House. On that occasion I was as annoyed as he was. I had put down a priority question and had he allowed me go ahead with that question without interruption he would not have been expelled from the House. I want to put on the record that it was a question I put down and the Deputy pulled the rug from under my feet and crashed into my priority question, and, as a result of being unruly he was asked to leave the House.
On the question of zero VAT rating for Irish newspapers, we would like to aspire to that but the Deputy is making the wrong comparison. He is making a comparison with the zero rating for newspapers in Britain. You cannot do that in isolation because other sides of industry and business in this country are subject to VAT rating. You cannot pick out one segment of business and say that by virtue of the fact that it qualified for zero rating in Britain it would qualify for zero rating here. That will create an imbalance. The Deputy has not spelled out why we should pick out the newspaper industry in particular and give it preferential treatment. Of course I would welcome total abolition of VAT.
I will support the amendment. There is a need for a review body or a review council, not necessarily on the lines suggested by Deputy Mitchell. I think there is a need for discussion. Despite the fact that the Minister, as far back as February 1987, said he was not in favour of establishing the body, what has happened in the interim has proved that there is an urgent need for such a body. Let me refer to the speech the Minister made introducing two elements into the Broadcasting Act. He was setting up the Independent Radio and Television Commission at that time. What has happened since then proves there is a need for a debate, otherwise we will have a rehash of what we have had since 29 May of this year when the original Bill was circulated. Since then, despite the best efforts of the Opposition, the Minister has stonewalled. I was not surprised when I heard him say yesterday he was interested in cricket. The way he has been stonewalling here for the past couple of weeks proves that he had no intention of hitting for a home run or a six — am I mixing something up?
Sacrilege. Remove that man from the House.
A Deputy
When you bring in foreign broadcasting this happens.
The home run. That is baseball. Hurling is my game, and I will stick with it. However, the Minister has stonewalled. We would like to bring the Minister out of his cocoon in which he has spent the last couple of weeks. Despite the threat the Minister issued to me yesterday, I look forward to his coming out. The Minister has been too quiet and that is not like him. I would prefer if the Minister came at us so that at least we would have something to which we could respond.
I would like Deputy Mitchell to comment on some of my points and tell me precisely what he did say in my native city in February of this year because it is central to the whole debate at this stage.
I support the amendment which is very much in keeping with amendment No. 3 proposed by The Workers' Party on Committee Stage. Because the point was decided on Committee Stage I did not seek to put down an amendment in support of a commission on broadcasting on this Stage. The Minister does not feel that the time is right to respond to our propositions but I disagree with him and support the amendment. Now is an opportune time to look again at the direction of broadcasting and the fundamental principles upon which we hope to develop it.
We first argued this case in 1982. I referred to Deputy De Rossa's statement then on our behalf and referred to it again during the debates in 1988. I do not intend to go any further in relation to that.
I join with Deputy Michael D. Higgins in regretting Deputy Mitchell's remark that we were opportunistic in suggesting that these amendments be taken together. We agreed that the previous set of amendments be taken together. I understand now that the consequence of taking the amendment together is that if the issue is lost, the consequential amendments based on it, amendments Nos. 9, 28, 30 and 50 in the Deputy's name will be lost as well, and we will not get to talk about some of the better features of the Deputy's overall scheme of things. We had hoped to address some of the better concepts, such as consultation with the industries and the notion that the Commission would be the authority to draw up advertising standards. We will not now be able to discuss those matters and that is a great pity. However, we agreed to take the amendments together to aid Deputy Mitchell and not to be opportunistic.
The concept proposed in the amendment is an excellent one. I support the amendments of my Front Bench colleague, Deputy Jim Mitchell, because never was there a time when a review body or a council in the whole area of communications or broadcasting was more needed. Television has been totally transformed from what it was ten years ago and it will be again transformed in ten years time. The reason for the transformation relates not so much to what appears on the screen. The real revolution in broadcasting, particularly in television, relates to the development of communications. Development in communications technology has been bewildering and it is mainly based on the satellites, in geo-stationary satellites with massive footprints and also in the development of fibre optics and computers. The best and most dramatic example of all the change that has taken place is the recent example of the World Cup where Packie Bonner stops a penalty and is seen in the remotest corner of the world. That is the sort of transformation which is taking place and we have only started with this technology.
We no longer have national frontiers in broadcasting. There are no frontiers on the airwaves and this has a huge impact on us, something that should be the subject of consideration on an ongoing basis by a review body such as that suggested by Deputy Mitchell in his amendment. We can no longer have a cosy arrangement controling our own viewing exclusively, because channels will continue to pour in from the sky where there are no frontiers. It is essential therefore to have this review body.
We are not talking about something static or traditional in television, for instance like the theatre which, despite changes in style and methods, is still basically the same. Television is changing very swifely. One of the major tasks of a review body would be to consider the proposition the Minister has before us now: do we or do we not need a third television channel? Perhaps the review body would come down in favour of that and perhaps not. The Minister has told us that there will be a third channel and has given us his opinion which in recent times has been shown to be wrong because the Minister has changed dramatically from the first proposition put before the House. There is a fair indication to suggest that the Minister thinks that the opinion he put forward first is the right one. We differ with all of them. This is the kind of thing to which the experts on a review body could apply their minds and they could help out with the thinking in the Department and the thinking of the Minister, so that we can get it right.
The Minister says that the purpose of this Bill is to have greater competition. Is it necessary to have a third television channel? Is that the best way to go about getting greater competition? That would be a matter for the review body. Will greater competition improve the standards, as the Minister wishes? It will not automatically. If the Minister wants to look at an example of what competition does, he should look at what it has done to the British tabloids. The hectic competition there has not led to a new era of improved journalism, to new, greater, uplifting daily morning newspapers, unless one is the type of person who would regard the page three girls as being uplifting. What we have in the tabloids is a competition of revelations and titillations of one sort or another, not what the distinguished owners of these papers set about doing, but what competition for a very finite market, as far as advertising is concerned, has done. They are following where the greatest revenue will be for them. They did not set out to do this, but it is the result of intense competition. I am not saying that television competition will be the same but it is something that a review body might examine. Greater competition in television could bring us competition not where the Minister wants it, but in soap operas all shown at the same time and based on whatever is the vogue of the day. Television stations do not want to cater even for their own soap junkies. All they are interested in is TAM ratings; what registers with their advertising.
The Minister is obviously looking for greater competition in the areas of news and current affairs, the areas where we can give our own distinct personality to our television station, where we can push out the frontiers of broadcasting. That is the area in which the Minister is obviously interested but is competition, the kind of competition that would be provided by TV3, the answer? Perhaps it is but I would like that to be discussed at enormous length because of its impact on the future of television. There is another possibility. The Minister might have considered setting up an independent news and broadcasting service for the existing channel two. Perhaps there are lots of objections to that. That may not be the answer but it is a matter I would like a commission to consider.
With TV3 there will be greater competition for limited resources and my opinion is that we may end up with two mediocre services. If we have mediocre services the viewing public will operate their remote controls to switch off from the Irish channels and tune in to the satellite channels or UTV. If that occurs the limited amount of advertising available to any Irish station will go. The Minister has told us that RTE will always remain the dominant service but I wonder if that will be the case. I would like to think that they will remain the dominant service because as a sovereign nation we need a strong public service broadcasting voice. Have the BBC, with their strong financial support from licence fees, remained the dominant television station? Some might think they have but I do not think so. It may be that RTE may not receive permission to broadcast a major event like an All-Ireland final. There is nothing more English than a test match and we should bear in mind that this year Sky channel televised the test match from the West Indies. They did so because they were able to up the ante and buy the television rights and there is no guarantee that RTE will continue to be in a position to buy the rights to major sporting and public events.
For the Minister to say that RTE will remain the dominant service will not be very encouraging for TV3. In effect he is saying to the new channel that he will help them along the line but that he will not permit them to become the dominant station. That does not represent a very good start for any enterprise, whether public or private. I fear that we will not get an improvement in news and current affairs or public affairs broadcasting areas. We will have competition at the lower level and very often in order to attract viewers stations lower their standards. That may be the effect of competition and it is something that a commission could examine if such a body was given broad terms of reference as suggested by Deputy Mitchell.
The general feeling was that Century Radio would be successful but that has not turned out to be the case. I wish Century Radio well and I hope they survive but if more thought was given to establishing the station I do not think they would be struggling today. We are talking about something that is of great importance to our listeners and viewers and, therefore, to our lifestyle. Most of us like to watch television and the programmes produced are important to us. The Minister's changes will not be the only ones that will take place in regard to television. Technology will change enormously and a Government some years hence will have to make changes to meet the demands of the future.
The Minister referred to public service broadcasting but I do not think his ideas for 2FM represent the best approach. The Minister, in his capacity as Minister for Justice, may be interested to know that I was responsible for the launching of "Garda Patrol" in the sixties. I understand that it is the second longest running programme on RTE.
I knew the Deputy had something to his credit.
It is one of the station's longest running programmes.
It is an excellent programme.
It is an example of public service broadcasting being put over in a popular form. It has proved to be of general interest and has succeeded in getting across a message. That should be the approach to public service broadcasting. Leaving aside the controversy about the Minister's proposals in regard to 2FM, I do not think there is any point in having excellent public service programmes crushed together on one station because people will not view them. There is little point in having an excellent message if there are no viewers. Such a matter could be considered by a commission.
Deputy Mitchell's amendment deals with the Irish Language. As far as a proposed Teilifís na Gaeltachta is concerned we may have missed the boat with the launching of TV3 and the provisions in the Bill for the capping of RTE advertising. I presume that up to now RTE would not come up front as far as such a channel is concerned but it appears that they have resources to set up such a channel without the need to seek an increase in the licence fee. However, that opportunity will go with the passing of the Bill because of the capping on advertising. It is unfortunate that we have lost the last opportunity of establishing Teilifís na Gaeltachta without the need to depend on a subsidy by the public. If that station was established through revenue generated within RTE the public would not object to it and we would have a very fine Irish language channel.
Countries with minority languages cater for them and the best example nearest our shores is the Welsh television service. It is well financed and is doing an excellent job as far as the Welsh language is concerned. It is proving very attractive and pulling in an audience who would normally switch off from such a station. A commission along the lines suggested by Deputy Mitchell could get involved in such a proposal.
The Minister may disagree with many of the points I have raised but he should bear in mind that, like others, I am putting forward my ideas as to what is best for broadcasting. I accept that it is being done in a political atmosphere and that as a result it may appear that I am taking up an entrenched position and that because of the Minister's attitude there will not be any give and take. It is for that reason that a commission could act as an arbitrator on the ideas put forward during the course of the debate. If such a body was established and considered the suggestions put forward we would have better broadcasting. The difficulties that have arisen over the Minister's Bill, the enormous public attention it has attracted and the emotions it has raised, are a reflection of the extent to which television in particular, and radio, are part of our lives. We should proceed making use of the advice available to us. A review body along the lines suggested by Deputy Mitchell would be the ideal vehicle to deal with this process. I strongly recommend Deputy Mitchell's amendment and if the Minister cannot accept it at this stage he might consider doing so in the Seanad.
I intend to be brief at this stage because on Committee Stage when the concept of a broadcasting council was proposed we had an opportunity of putting our views forward. The Minister responded but he did not see merit in the proposal. The Labour Party can support the amendment in terms of its principle. However, I will have considerable difficulty in agreeing with the proposed terms of reference of the proposed council. As has been said, we will also have a difficulty in accepting paragraph (ii) which would confine representation on the council to, for example, representatives of the Irish language. Quite frankly, there are many groups involved in the revival movement interested in the survival of the language but these differ when it comes to the survival of the Gaeltachts. While I do not want to get involved in the dispute on that issue, I wish to state that I was greatly disappointed that the Minister was unwilling to reply on Committee Stage, apart altogether from the political differences between us, to long and detailed statements on broadcasting policy and a list of broadcasting issues raised by Deputy McCartan and myself. Indeed, one of the Minister's responses to a number of issues at the heart of broadcasting was just three sentences long.
I recall prefacing my remarks on the proposed broadcasting policy review council by stating that, irrespective of who was Minister for Communications, these issues have to be faced and that everyone would benefit if these matters were clarified by a council adequately composed. Like the flat-earthers who said that the time for discussing physics ended some years ago, the Minister's argument that the time for discussing broadcasting policy ceased in the eighties, and dropped dead when he took over, is unsustainable. This is a very unfortunate attitude to adopt. The Minister is well aware that there was a time when he said he did not want talking shops, that he was a man of action and so forth. Many Popes held such a view and I have no doubt that the ghost of Gallileo will visit the Minister to ask him explain the consequences of his actions.
One of the issues the Minister chose not to respond to is the impact of the satellite stations on European broadcasting. I recall asking him questions about the current pressures on the EBU, its relationship with Eastern Europe and on the statement from the Council of the EBU in which they stated that they were forced into the marketplace to bid against satellite operators for the rights to cover international events and the effect this would have on their ability not to introduce a pro rata charge for subscribers to their services. The concept that membership established an entitlement was a powerful one in international broadcasting but this has changed since the advent of satellite broadcasting.
I have also made reference to the impact of what is called in shorthand Japanese hardware and American software on satellite capacity, the question of programming content, the nature of material sold internationally and on the near monopoly, far from the free market, enjoyed by producers of "soaps", for example, in North America.
The Minister also failed to address the question of developments in cable services. In this instance, we have broadcating issues in competition with other aspects of telecommunications development. It is possible to use cable in a number of commercial activities which come into conflict with its use for broadcasting at certain points. The Minister also failed to comment on the usage of MMDS. After all, as the Minister said himself, he is breaking new ground and is the first Irish Minister to introduce MMDS as a national system. However, the cold water of reason flowed all around us for a while afterwards and the Minister's bullish attitude seems to have evaporated like snow on a sunny morning. I am listing here issues which a broadcasting council could and should have looked at. However, the Minister decided that he was not going to comment on the questions of satellite, cable and MMDS and we need not be concerned about them. I prefaced my remarks by stating that irrespective of who was Minister for Communications he has to take up the technical aspects of broadcasting policy.
Some other issues raised are purely political. At one stage in the debate we moved from the concept of plurality of choice, a programming issue, to the question of ownership, control and access which has not been addressed. Let me say, with respect, that it is this rather ignorant confusion over the dimensions of ownership, control, access, programming and editorial activity which has led to the current chaos in broadcasting. Those who imagined that they had money to fire at broadcasting lost sight of the fundamental nature of broadcasting which is that a particular professionalism and ethos is established over time which results in good programming content. As, unfortunately, many people have learned in Ireland and elsewhere, it is possible to have a great deal of money to invest in broadcasting, but because of inadequate or insensitive, innovative programming, not to capture an audience.
In relation to broadcasting on both radio and television, advertisers will come back to tell you that you can fire all the money you like at it and find the most exotic investors but unless people listen or watch they are not interested in purchasing advertising. We have no great ideological problems with these propositions. However, the Minister is not willing to tease them out or answer specific questions in this House on programming and the differences between having a range of choices and the question of ownership. Indeed, he has gone so far as to say that there is no point in having any council to discuss these issues. It is, as I said, as if the world had stopped. This is a dangerous policy to adopt.
While I am unhappy at the way in which the Irish language is handled in the amendment, where it has been included after "good taste, violence, sex..." I am willing to accept the wording so as not to defeat the concept. What we are now witnessing is a total abandonment of the right of the people of the Gaeltachts to have a television station located in the Gaeltacht which meet their own needs and provides a national service for anyone interested in the language. There is no point in imagining that this is not the position. As anyone remotely interested in broadcasting knows, this legislation marks a complete departure from any generic concept of broadcasting, that the people should have a say in exercising choices and have sovereignty over what is carried. This is being sacrificed not only in terms of a free marketplace but a regulated, manipulated marketplace.
The Minister has referred to listenership surveys for radio but, interestingly, he has not referred to any survey which indicates that an overwhelming or significant minority of the public have said they want independent, commercial and privately owned television. I ask the Minister to produce evidence which shows that there is a significant group of people asking for a TV3 channel. I would love to see the results of a survey, like. the listenership one which has so often been pushed at us, as to how the public would feel about a further concept, that is, that what they expressed no great preference for will happen regardless but that it will happen at the cost of a station for which they had accountability and which was developed in an ethos of public service broadcasting. Where is the survey data to support that proposition? There is no point in continuing to repeat ourselves because there are so many issues of a broadcasting policy kind that are being ignored now that I feel it is a real disservice to the public and to this House.
In many ways the entire anti-national thrust of legislation such as this is distressing. It is as if there is to be nothing for which we might have a féin mhias any more. The whole question of Teilifís na Gaeltachta has been an insult. Having been involved and having met a meitheal of Teilifís na Gaeltachta very early on — I was on the Comhchoiste don Ghaeilge made up of Members of both Houses when they came and gave evidence — and I watched the progress on that question, what I find distasteful is people coming along to the Gaeltacht now like Keepers of Indians, spattering out their few words of Irish, when knowing full well as Members who support this legislation will, that this was the week in which the final blow was given to the Gaeltacht areas on a fundamental aspect of rights. The reality is — and I represent here the largest Gaeltacht — that the communicative order of a community contains both what is in print and what is broadcast. There has been a battle by the people of the Gaeltacht to have their own paper. This Government can answer a question to me to say that there is no newspaper or journal produced in the Gaeltacht; it is written for them rather like the case of the reservations.
There has been a successful Raidio na Gaeltachta. The ability of the Gaeltacht communities to survive depended on undoing the incredible damage of a visual medium that was in English and in competition with an aural medium that was through Irish. We begged the Government who had a kind of superficial commitment to the Irish language — at least they never put it into its shroud and buried it officially — that they might listen to these arguments. So far as the Irish language is mentioned in this amendment as something which the broadcasting council might give consideration to, with respect to the proposer, I believe it will be too late. The fact is that this is the death knell in relation to any Gaeltacht-located television service. I am in no doubt whatsoever about that. The language and the people of the Gaeltacht and their questions of communication were buried slowly by reports. I have to say this and I wish the Minister was here; it is my hope that before this Government goes out of office that the Aire na Gaeltachta will one day come in and stand up here and speak in Irish, English, French or whatever language he likes, justifying what he has presided over in relation to the Gaeltacht and the Irish language. It has been a scandal, a source of shame and a disgrace. The special report came up from the meitheal, it went to RTE and from there to the Department of Communications and finally to the Department of the Gaeltacht. A different range of Airí Stáit stand up and they all say: níl aon chinneadh déanta fós. There will be no decision to be taken after this legislation is enacted and we want to be very clear on that.
When all the posturing about the Irish language is over and I have spoken more Irish in the House than most Members. I would say that it has been a matter of struggling for your rights here. I have seen people depart quickly from the Chamber when one begins, in the Irish language. That is a minor insult that a representative of the Gaeltacht has to put up with in this House but it is nothing in comparison to the deprivation of the rights of the people of the Gaeltacht to have even the possibility of a station that would be located in the Gaeltacht and that would carry the Irish language. Politeness stops me from telling you what you can do with your two hours on RTE 2 when you have in fact decided what is down the road. The Minister will stand up and tell us he will impose two hours on RTE 2. I suspect that one of the prime motivations in that will be to try to make the station unattractive so that TV 3 can mop up some advertising while RTE goes on with the obligation of keeping the hypocrisy in relation to the language going.
What has been happening is an absolute outrage. I am weary of making concessions in this House on this matter. We have rights under the Constitution but I suggest that, following the enactment of this Bill, we tear out of it all the pages that have pieces in Irish. There is no commitment on the other side of the House by any serious person in relation to one jot or iota of the language. That is why they put in a silent mummy as Aire na Gaeltachta. I wish he would come down and speak in my constituency some time and explain what he is doing.
There are a few minor points I would like to make. Here we have the sheer anti-intellectualism of opposing the idea of a review body or council. We must be in a singular position in this country in relation to this. What is so unique about Ireland that every time somebody has the capacity to offer alternative ideas about the future of broadcasting, it is a talking shop? Is it in the cumanns that the intellectual hard work goes on so that by the time the Minister comes up with a proposal, or has weaved it together, all discourse must stop? These are the people who mouth on about authoritarianism being under challenge in the world, in Eastern Europe and in other places. This idea that you must not, should not, will not have anything like a council or a review body is nonsense. I am not saying anything I did not say — as Deputy Mitchell knows — in my opposition to his proposals at different times which were on the basis of having a White Paper and a council etc. He would acknowledge that. These are not views I have had in relation to this Minister. It is damaging to broadcasting to do as the Minister is doing. The idea is that decisions will be taken by the Minister and by the Department. The attitude is "what would the public have to say anyhow?" that is arrogant and authoritarian. To leave the present Minister out of it for a moment, any Minister who opposes the possibilities of people discussing broadcasting must be judged on that.
We have to make progress on these amendments. I appeal again to the Minister not to simply dismiss the idea of a council; there would be no point in that at this stage because we are talking about the future of broadcasting. There is no point in saying, "when you were there," or "when I was there" or "when I was in Cork and you were in Belfast", or wherever all this was. At the end of the day the issue very simply is whether there is a case for a broadcasting review body or a broadcasting council. It seems to me that there is a case for such a council or body if we are talking about the future orderly development of broadcasting — whatever may survive of it. In that sense we in the Labour Party can support the concept of a broadcasting council, whatever our reservations about the ordering of the terms of reference.
I want to briefly make a contribution on amendment No. 8. The need for it is obvious in the sense that the legislation we have before us is extremely controversial and divisive. If there was a broadcasting body or council in operation many of the views which have been put so vociferously in the last number of weeks would have been made known before hand. I question the Minister on what advice he took before he presented the Bill? Did he talk to anybody? Did he have advice? Does he have advisers who, from time to time, give him some background information on what he proposes to do? It appears that this is not the case and that he sprung this Bill on all of us. What we have been learning over the past few weeks should have been known long before the Minister decided to put this Bill before the House. It is extremely divisive. Every day Deputies in the House, including the Minister, are getting memoranda from various organisations and groups spelling out from their point of view the damage this legislation will do.
I had a letter dated 10 July, this morning from the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, on the same theme as much of the other literature we have received, pointing out quite clearly the implications of the Minister's proposals. Of course it must be said that it contains their opinion but the Minister will refute it entirely, leaving most of us in the House confused because, in the midst of all this controversy, we are not sure who is right and who is wrong. It would appear that the Minister was ill-informed, ill-advised. Obviously he did not talk to the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, to RTE or to anybody involved in the industry. He jumped this whole business on us. Then he found the whole world collapsing on his head, began to change from day to day, to back pedal, flounder; indeed every time one reads a paper one sees something new with regard to what the Minister intends doing. This morning — so the newspapers tell us — it is to be a reprieve for the RTE people for a few months. Tomorrow morning it will be something else and the day after yet something new again. It is a shambles from beginning to end. If there were a broadcasting council it is unlikely that such would happen. The Minister would then have available to him much advice, background information and would not make the silly mistakes he has made here.
On the very strong views expressed by the previous Deputy on the subject of the Irish language, surely there is need to examine this matter in great detail in terms of the times in which we live. Everybody in the country today would contend that the Irish language is more or less dead, that when we study it, we are studying something from our past not at all relevant to today. The undoubted national aspiration, that of the Government and of all Members would be that the Irish language should survive, be vibrant and relative to today. Yet nobody, including the Minister for Education, has taken any steps to endeavour to take an overview of that subject. I might point to a question Deputy Bruton has tabled on the Order Paper for tomorrow which I discussed with him — that is an attempt to internationalise the language, letting our people see that Gaelic is used in many parts of the world. Anybody who has travelled around Scotland and observed the posters appearing in villages there — written in Scots Gaelic — will realise that we can read and understand them, since Scots Gaelic is quite similar to our language. There are various other parts of the world in which Gaelic is still a spoken language. Why cannot we have a new vibrant approach to the overall teaching of Irish, its televising, interlinking all the communities who use it? Surely the proposed broadcasting council would, if so requested, examine that matter. If such an enlightened approach was adopted, I have no doubt that the use of Irish in schools, on television, in the Gaeltacht areas and in daily discussions between people would become more relevant, have a new motivation and new dignity attaching to it. I hazard a guess that the Minister, in the preparation of this Bill, sought no advice on that matter either. Rather it would appear he did something he felt was the thing to do and that was it. It is essential that the contents of amendment No. 8 be incorporated in this botched Bill. Indeed I commend Deputy Jim Mitchell for having tabled it.
I want to take up with the Minister also the question of illegal broadcasting. We had all been under the impression that illegal broadcasting was something of the past.
I am afraid that does not come within the ambit of this amendment.
It does, a Leas Cheann Comhairle, within the terms of amendment No. 8 and the establishment of the Broadcasting Policy Review Council.
It does, Sir, and could include discussion on illegal broadcasting.
The remit should.
I only wish to help the Chair.
Deputy Connor, I am not aware of your succeeding in your ambition in that regard.
It is a great pity I would not.
Would the Deputy please contain himself.
I wish to discuss the matter under amendment No. 8.
I am directing the Deputy to what is legal.
I wish to discuss, on amendment No. 8, the remit of this proposed Broadcasting Policy Review Council. Their remit certainly should be to examine the legislation obtaining. Perhaps I could give an example——
Deputy Cotter, I am sorry, I notice you took the point, but there is nothing in amendment No. 8 that provides for action against illegal broadcasting.
Their remit should include——
A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, the last part of my amendment reads:
(5) Its remit shall include consideration of all relevant questions affecting community, local, national and international broadcasting including funding, competition (internal and external), balance standards (including standards relating to good taste, violence, sex and language), public order, copyright, performing rights, home production (including independent home production), Irish language culture and news content.
It is quite open-ended.
Yes, but not illegal broadcasting.
It should; it has to do with public order.
Deputy Cotter, we will bear with you, as we have with other Deputies.
It will take me a few sentences only to illustrate what I am talking about.
The Chair insists that we do not ramble too far from what is legal——
Normally I do not ramble at all; I speak to the point most times.
Gach duine agus a chiall féin aige, is eagal liom. An dtiocfaidh tú níos cóngaraí don ábhar atá os do chomhair ansin, le do thoil?
With regard to paragraph (5) of amendment No. 8 I contend the remit should include an urgent review of existing legislation. If it my view and has been my experience that the legislation aimed at controlling illegal broadcasting has been totally ineffective. When in Monaghan I can switch on my radio and listen at any time to an illegal station broadcasting from around the village of Tedavnet north of Monaghan town. I brought this matter to the attention of the Minister's office and of everybody concerned some months ago. Indeed I have had discussions with some of the Minister's staff in this regard but, can one believe it, in the days in which we live, they are unable to put this person off the air. This means there is a serious flaw in the existing legislation. I am sure the Minister is well aware of the example I have given. I am sure his office has been bombarded by other representatives of my area about this illegal broadcasting problem. It is a disgrace and should not be allowed continue. Of course, "Northern Sound" has been on the air for the past month. Yet that other illegal station is competing with it for much needed revenue and listenership. Therefore, it will clearly be seen that there is a grave need for a review of the legislation.
Since the Minister says there is no urgency about the finalisation of this legislation until some time in the autumn, I would urge him to take this Bill, tear it up, throw it away and, in the interim, assemble all of the people who would have a constructive input in overall broadcasting policy here to form some type of ad hoc policy review council to examine all of the important questions raised inside and outside this House since this Bill was produced. The Minister should give them three or four months to examine in detail all the many policy issues that have arisen. If he did so I am certain that, at the end of the day, we would be afforded an opportunity to put together a Bill whose provisions would be far-reaching, effecting fundamental changes in the present proposals but developing the broadcasting industry rather than what is happening at present, in that we are told daily that what the Minister is doing is utterly regressive and bad.
I rise to support amendment No. 8 because what we should have done first of all was put into practice the proposals contained therein. Broadcasting, the dissemination of news, entertainment and so on has progressed by way of a quantum leap over the past 5 to 10 years. Ten years ago the number of radio wave bands that could be utilised and the radial distribution of television signals were greatly restricted. We did not then have ultra high frequency — UHF — for television transmission. In the meantime there has been this quantum leap forward in the whole technology of distribution, and this has opened up a completely new scenario in this country as, indeed, it has all over the world. This country is today being penetrated by radio and television signals, mostly television signals, because of the use of satellites. Satellites were the major leap forward in the last half decade or so in the distribution of television and radio signals and this has global application. No longer has one to live within sight of a television transmitter. A satellite dish looks down on half of the planet earth and can distribute signals and messages in this way.
We have had a great deal of legislation. Two years ago we had the local radio Bill and the Wireless Telegraphy Bill running alongside of that, and there has been other legislation throughout the seventies. None of them have ever been able to fundamentally address the totally new scene in broadcasting that we are faced with. This, of course is more piecemeal legislation brought in by the Minister which takes no real account of what is taking place in the world all around us. Very wisely, our spokesperson has brought forward this as what we should first have in place. If we are to have new legislation in broadcasting for radio and television, we should devise it with the information that we would get from a council of this kind. It would obviously be a council of wise persons because it would be made up of all the people who have interests or are interested in broadcasting, whether it is people involved in the distribution of the signals, the science of distributing the signals, or the consumers. We would appeal to the Minister to take this on board.
The whole area is changing so rapidly. A friend of mine who works in the telecommunications area was able to tell me recently that microwave distribution is rapidly approaching obsolesence; that there are now new techniques by which a whole range of television and radio signals can be received down one's telephone line, and that will be the technology of the future. There are technologies that are even more futuristic than those. There is no area that has gone ahead in such leaps and bounds because there was such an amount of funding of the scientific inquiry into the whole area which went along with the space programmes. From that we have developed this marvellous technology and the people who do research in the area say that we will continue making new discoveries which will shrink the world, if one likes, more and more because of the distribution of television and radio signals. That has a profound impact upon us culturally, socially and every other way and that would be all within the remit of this broadcasting council, if the Minister would allow it to be put in place.
It would be a saving grace of the terrible controversy which has surrounded the enactment of this Bill in this House if this were accepted by the Minister. Surely this legislation has got itself a really bad reputation. It will be seen very much as the Minister's legislation. People used the word "vindictive" about it. If it is to go through in its present form, with all its blemishes, its reputation will just be bad. The Minister can do something about saving his reputation. We would say to the Minister that he should scrap the whole thing, but obviously he is determined to go ahead. The Minister can however do a lot to save its reputation by accepting this amendment.
Let me begin with the point made by Deputy Michael D. Higgins. I fully recognise the commitment of Deputy Higgins to the Irish language and the development of our culture. He has spent many years representing the people of the largest Gaeltacht in the country. He has been involved for many years in the support of Irish theatre, Irish music and art. He has worked on various committees within this House and elsewhere promoting the language and I would be less than frank or honest if I did not admit that in this House. He is wrong, however, about the effect this Bill will have on any proposal for the establishment of Teilifís na Gaeltachta. I would reject his proposition that it is the death knell of the Teilifís na Gaeltachta proposal. That is very far from what is in mind.
Deputy Cotter referred to an article in the paper this morning about the proposal to extend the start time of this legislation, 1 October, and said that it would mean an additional £2 million for RTE this year. Deputy Cotter actually voted against it last night with Fine Gael, Labour and The Workers' Party.
On Deputy Nealon's point about whether or not we should have TV3, that decision has been taken by the Oireachtas in the Radio and Television Act 1988, passed by the Dáil and the Seanad and providing for a television programme service. He said that this review council that is proposed should decide whether or not we should have TV3. That is already decided by an Act of the Oireachtas. He said that in some way TV3 would result in a reduction of standards. I have said before, and it is worth repeating, that in establishing the radio and television service it was decided by the Independent Radio and Television Commission that the Commission shall ensure that the television programme service provided under this Act shall in its programming (a) be responsive to the interests and concerns of the whole community, be mindful of the need for understanding and peace within the whole island of Ireland, ensure that the programmes reflect the various elements which make up the culture of the people of the whole island of Ireland, and have special regard for the elements which distinguish the culture and, in particular, for the Irish language; (b) uphold the democratic values enshrined in the Constitution, especially those relating to rightful liberty of expression; (c) have regard to the need for the formation of public awareness and understanding of the values and traditions of countries other than the State, including in particular those of such countries which are members of the European Community; (d) include a reasonable proportion of news and current affairs. It was also decided by the IRTC that the television programme service contractor shall comply with any requirements of the commission in respect of such matters; and that for the purpose of ensuring compliance with subsection (3) the commission shall ensure that a reasonable proportion of the programme service: (a) is produced in the State or in another member state of the European Community; and (b) is devoted to original programme material produced therein by persons other than the contractor, his subsidiary, his parent or existing broadcasting organisation.
These are exactly the same terms of reference under which RTE operate their programming with the addition, in relation to a reasonable proportion, of programming services being produced outside of the main broadcaster. There has been no suggestion that the terms of reference under which RTE has been established has in any way affected standards. On the contrary, it is generally and rightfully recognised that RTE have provided, and will continue to provide, the people of this country with a superb standard of radio and television programming. It is exactly the same terms of reference, extended as I have said, under which the independent stations, set up under the Radio and Television Act, 1988, operate.
Deputy Nealon spoke about the national independent station. In the course of the debate in this House it has been recognised by all sides that the new service of the independent national station has been excellent, and various tributes were paid to it from all sides of the House. The Deputy wondered whether there was a need for this type of service. The public decided, prior to its establishment, that there is a need for these services. At that time we had the talking shop referred to by Deputy Higgins, but no action was taken. There were over 70 pirate stations in this country and there was plenty of talk, commissions and reports but no action. The public decided they wanted choice and they were listening to these 70 stations, just as they are now listening to the independent stations which have been established since the 1988 Act came into force. There are now about 20 such stations and there is another going on the air on Friday in south Wicklow. A survey published two weeks ago shows that approximately one million people, over 40 per cent of the radio listening population, are listening to the independent stations at some time during the day. That indicates there is a need for choice.
Deputy Higgins referred to chaos in Irish broadcasting. I can assure the Deputy there was chaos on our airwaves but we attempted to do something about that in the Radio and Television Act, 1988, which allowed for the establishment of independent television and radio, and this Bill is one further step in that direction. I reject the accusation that there is an anti-national thrust to this legislation. On the contrary, what this legislation and the 1988 Act are doing is establishing choice for Irish people, coming from Irish-produced sources. At present what we have — and it is rapidly developing — is the phenomenon of the satellite stations and the choice and range that are available on satellite, all coming from foreign sources, without an Irish ethos. I believe strongly it is essential that we would have at least one further TV station which would have an Irish thrust, with Irish news, current affairs and programming produced by Irish programme makers, which together with RTE 1 and Network 2 would help to balance the influence of the stations coming in on terrestrial and by satellite. It is vitally important that there be a strong Irish influence, and I reject the idea of the Bill being in any way anti-national.
As far as the future of MMDS is concerned, the MMDS licences to cover the whole country have been allocated and a number of the contractors are already putting the operation in place. Later sections of the Bill refer to MMDS and assistance to the MMDS operators. I can assure the House there is no talking shop involved. What we are doing is developing a strong national broadcasting sector, not just in a State-owned form but with a diverse ownership and a range and choice of programming. The people have decided that is what they want and that is what they are going to listen to.
Depty Mitchell referred to an editorial in an engineering magazine and talked about the first-class broadcasting service provided by RTE. I agree fully that it is, and will remain a first-class broadcasting service, and there is nothing in this legislation that will in any way affect the first-class broadcasting service of RTE. It is not, and never was the intention of this Government to in any way damage RTE. What is intended by the Government is that the people will have choice available to them from an Irish source rather than from outside sources.
As regard my handling of this Bill, the Deputy cannot have it both ways. On the one hand, I am accused of being dogmatic, that I come in, listen, make short replies and do not take on board any of the points made, while, on the other hand, I am accused of speaking in the House, listening to what has been said, introducing another set of amendments and then a further set. I have been listening and taking note of the points made in this House and outside it by various representative groups, whether by congress, charities, organisations or various other groups who have legitimate interests in the development of broadcasting.
Why have you not torn it up then?
I have taken a number of these points on board. You cannot stand up and accuse me of being dogmatic and refusing to listen while at the same time, when I do make changes, accuse me of flip-flopping around in relation to the legislation. You cannot have it both ways.
The thrust of the amendment is that there should be a review group to consider such matters as good taste and so on. I assure the Deputy that the world did not stand still the day he, Fine Gael and Labour left Government. Most of the points the Deputy is concerned with are included in the European Convention on Transfrontier Television and the EC Directive on the co-ordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in member states concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities. For example, the Deputy asked that the whole question of good taste be looked at. I will quote from Article 22 of the Council Directive which states:
Member States shall take appropriate measures to ensure that television broadcasts by broadcasters under their jurisdiction do not include programmes which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, in particular those that involve pornography or gratuitous violence. This provision shall extend to other programmes which are likely to impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, except where it is ensured, by selecting the time of the broadcast or by any technical measure, that minors in the area of transmission will not normally hear or see such broadcasts.
Member States shall also ensure that broadcasts do not contain any incitement to hatred on grounds of race, sex, religion or nationality.
All of these points have been covered in the EC Directive and the European Convention. I will quote from article 7 of the Convention in relation to the same item which states under the heading, Responsibilities of the broadcaster:
1. All items of programme services, as concerns their presentation and content, shall respect the dignity of the human being and the fundamental rights of others.
In particular, they shall not:
a. be indecent and in particular contain pornography;
b. give undue prominence to violence or be likely to incite to racial hatred.
2. All items of programme services which are likely to impair the physical, mental or moral development of children and adolescents shall not be scheduled when, because of the time of transmission and reception, they are likely to watch them.
3. The broadcaster shall ensure that news fairly present facts and events and encourage the free formation of opinions.
All the various aspects in relation to transfrontier broadcasting are covered.
Deputy Mitchell made the point that one of the amendments I had tabled showed how little I understood the situation and that I was merely giving one year's grace to the independent production sector. Amendment No. 33 reads:
4. —In the period from the commencement of this Act until the 3rd day of October, 1991, the Authority shall ensure that a reasonable proportion of the programme material on its television services is devoted to original programme material produced in the State or in another Member State of the European Communities by persons other than the Authority, its subsidiaries or other broadcasting organisations and that, as far as is practicable, that proposition shall not be less than that broadcast by the Authority in the year 1989.
Deputy Mitchell accused me of giving them one year's grace for home production, but the reality is that the EC Directive comes into force on 3 October 1991 which means that RTE or the independent television production company must give a reasonable proportion of their programme material to the independent sector. However the Directive does not take effect until 3 October 1991 and I am covering the period from 1 October 1990 until the Directive comes into force. The Deputy did not seem to be aware of that point, and I am glad to be able to clarify it for him.
Deputies also commented on the advertising levels but I must stress that the levels laid down were the maximum levels and there was no question of recommending those levels.
In conclusion, I will deal with Deputy Mitchell's point on carrying out a calm review of broadcasting. I think that "a calm review" in the context of this legislation is a code phrase for doing nothing, and that is exactly the position I started from when I took up office in the Department of Communications three and a half years ago. I inherited the "do nothing" policy — commissions plenty of reports and surveys and have plenty of discussion, indeed plenty of everything, but make no decisions: you cannot be wrong if you make no decisions. In the meantime, however, 70 pirate radio stations were allowed on air and nothing was done about the development of multichoice television for those who are not fortunate enough to live in a cable television area; nothing was done about the development of MMDS and nothing was done about setting up a legal framework for broadcasting. The philosophy is that you commission plenty of reviews and surveys and committees, but nothing gets done. In the meantime people find themselves without choice. We get passed by. The satellite stations can beam in their signal and offer a choice to our people but on the other hand we are doing nothing to try to develop further choice from an Irish source.
I am not prepared to accept the Deputy's amendment.
I am not in the least bit surprised by the Minister's refusal to accept this amendment. I think his reply to the points raised in the debate on this amendment indicates the confusion in his own mind. First, nobody is advocating that we do nothing, as the Minister has said himself. The House has already decided on enabling legislation for the setting up of a third television channel and that is not what is being discussed. We have seen the need for a review of how broadcasting will develop in the future; and how the technological changes will affect the viability of broadcasting. The fact is that on taking up office the Minister inherited two Bills already prepared which enabled him to move speedily. He also inherited an RTE which had been turned around from the loss-making company they were when his party left office in 1982. RTE had been overhauled following the consultants' report and a firm foundation had been set, and when the legislation was ultimately introduced it was supported by those who were its authors. That was not a "do nothing" record, but we were choosing our time wisely and we were preparing the foundations so that when it was possible to proceed, solid foundations were laid.
The Minister, to use his own phrase, has been flip-flopping around in a dogmatic way. The dogma being that whatever he says is the unchallengeable wisdom on broadcasting. There is no contradiction in accusing him of being both dogmatic and flip-flopping around, because he is guilty on both counts.
Two commissions previously reported on the future of broadcasting, one in 1958-59 and the other in 1974, so a 15 year period elapsed between the first and second reports and it is now 16 years since the last report was commissioned. Given the enormous technological changes that have taken place in the meantime and the enormous technological changes in the pipeline — for example the potential of the telephone system which may make MMDS obsolete before it gets off the ground — it is self-evident that we need a thorough analysis so that we have a solid foundation for the future of Irish broadcasting.
I wish to thank all the Deputies who have spoken in support of my amendment. In fact I have to respond to a point made by Deputy Michael Higgins on the Irish language and say that amendment No. 50 in my name states that:
"15.—The Broadcasting Council shall make immediate proposals to the Minister for an all-Irish language television service.".
So we did not neglect the Irish language in our amendments.
I do not wish to delay the House any longer as I want the amendment to be put. However I must repeat that I very much regret that the Minister's flip-flopping — to use his own phrase — does not enable him to accept that the future of broadcasting is worthy of a report by a broadcasting review body, comprising those with a vital interest in this area and independent outsiders so that they can recommend to the House what the future broadcasting policy should be.
Deputy Mitchell has refused to answer my question and this could influence the way I will be voting on the amendment. There is no provision for a debate on the annual report in his amendment, and may I ask what he envisages should be the proper course of action to follow? When the report is laid before the House is it envisaged that there should be a debate on it?
I wish to apologise to Deputy O'Sullivan because I did not mean to overlook the points he had raised and in fact the Deputy also raised the method of appointment. I have no objection to the Minister appointing the members of the commission but as the amendment states, they should be representative of the larger interests involved together with a few independent persons. On the question of the report, I envisage that we would have an annual debate in the House on it.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 70; Níl, 75.
Tá
- Ahearn, Therese.
- Allen, Bernard.
- Barry, Peter.
- Bell, Michael.
- Belton, Louis J.
- Boylan, Andrew.
- Bradford, Paul.
- Browne, John (Carlow-Kilkenny).
- Bruton, John.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Carey, Donal.
- Connor, John.
- Cosgrave, Michael Joe.
- Cotter, Bill.
- Creed, Michael.
- Crowley, Frank.
- Currie, Austin.
- Deasy, Austin.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Doyle, Joe.
- Dukes, Alan.
- Enright, Thomas W.
- Farrelly, John V.
- Ferris, Michael.
- Finucane, Michael.
- FitzGerald, Garret.
- Flaherty, Mary.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Foxe, Tom.
- Gilmore, Eamon.
- Gregory, Tony.
- Harte, Paddy.
- Higgins, Jim.
- Higgins, Michael D.
- Hogan, Philip.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Kavanagh, Liam.
- Kemmy, Jim.
- Kenny, Enda.
- Lee, Pat.
- Lowry, Michael.
- McCartan, Pat.
- McCormack, Pádraic.
- McGahon, Brendan.
- Mac Giolla, Tomás.
- McGrath, Paul.
- Mitchell, Gay.
- Mitchell, Jim.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Nealon, Ted.
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- O'Keeffe, Jim.
- O'Shea, Brian.
- O'Sullivan, Toddy.
- Owen, Nora.
- Pattison, Séamus.
- Quinn, Ruairí.
- Rabbitte, Pat.
- Reynolds, Gerry.
- Ryan, Seán.
- Shatter, Alan.
- Sheehan, Patrick J.
- Sherlock, Joe.
- Spring, Dick.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Taylor, Mervyn.
- Taylor-Quinn, Madeleine
- Timmins, Godfrey.
- Yates, Ivan.
Níl
- Ahern, Dermot.
- Ahern, Michael.
- Andrews, David.
- Aylward, Liam.
- Barrett, Michael.
- Brady, Gerard.
- Clohessy, Peadar.
- Connolly, Ger.
- Coughlan, Mary Theresa.
- Cowen, Brian.
- Cullimore, Séamus.
- Daly, Brendan.
- Davern, Noel.
- Dempsey, Noel.
- Dennehy, John.
- de Valera, Síle.
- Ellis, John.
- Fahey, Frank.
- Fahey, Jackie.
- Fitzgerald, Liam Joseph.
- Fitzpatrick, Dermot.
- Flood, Chris.
- Flynn, Pádraig.
- Geoghegan-Quinn, Máire.
- Harney, Mary.
- Hillery, Brian.
- Hilliard, Colm.
- Hyland, Liam.
- Jacob, Joe.
- Kelly, Laurence.
- Kenneally, Brendan.
- Kirk, Séamus.
- Kitt, Michael P.
- Kitt, Tom.
- Lawlor, Liam.
- Lenihan, Brian.
- Leonard, Jimmy.
- Leyden, Terry.
- Brady, Vincent.
- Brennan, Mattie.
- Briscoe, Ben.
- Browne, John (Wexford).
- Burke, Raphael P.
- Callely, Ivor.
- Lyons, Denis.
- McCreevy, Charlie.
- McDaid, Jim.
- McEllistrim, Tom.
- Morley, P.J.
- Nolan, M. J.
- Noonan, Michael J. (Limerick West).
- O'Connell, John.
- O'Dea, Willie.
- O'Donoghue, John.
- O'Hanlon, Rory.
- O'Keeffe, Ned.
- O'Kennedy, Michael.
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Malley, Desmond J.
- O'Rourke, Mary.
- O'Toole, Martin Joe.
- Power, Seán.
- Quill, Máirín.
- Reynolds, Albert.
- Roche, Dick.
- Smith, Michael.
- Stafford, John.
- Treacy, Noel.
- Tunney, Jim.
- Wallace, Dan.
- Wallace, Mary.
- Walsh, Joe.
- Wilson, John P.
- Woods, Michael.
- Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Higgins and Boylan; Níl, Deputies V. Brady and Clohessy.
Amendment declared lost.
Sitting suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 2.30 p.m.