Broadcasting Authority Bill, 1959—Committee Stage (Resumed).
Debate resumed on Section 16.
I move amendment No. 17:—
In subsection (3), paragraph (a), line 57, before "by" to insert "(after compliance with the provisions of paragraph (b) of this subsection)."
I move the amendment on behalf of Senator O'Quigley who is unable to be present, and I suggest we might discuss with it amendment No. 18. His idea was that since the licence will be issued by the Minister, and the Minister can be questioned about it, it should be laid before each House of the Oireachtas and be approved before becoming operative. I should like to hear the Minister on that.
In so far as the licence itself is concerned, it will be purely a technical licence and will have conditions in connection with the technical operation of the broadcasting system. It will also give authority to the Minister to visit the broadcasting station and any other premises which the Authority may control. It is not proposed to write anything into the licence in connection with any of the matters determined by the Bill when it is an Act. So far as I am concerned, I have no objection whatever to laying the licence on the Tables of both Houses of the Oireachtas.
If the licence is issued——
I do not think it advisable to have a licence of that nature discussed in the Houses of the Oireachtas, and determined upon by the Houses of the Oireachtas, but I shall meet the amendment by agreeing to have the licence, when issued, laid on the Tables of the Houses of the Oireachtas. I do not know whether or not it requires legislation to enable that to be done——
——but if it does, I shall have it examined in that regard. I want to go further in connection with the amendment which stood in the name of Senator Hayes—amendment No. 6 to Section 5—and say that I am considering that matter further. The Senator sought, in that amendment, to have the terms of employment and remuneration of the members of the Authority laid on the Tables of both Houses of the Oireachtas. I am looking into that again with a view to meeting the principle expressed in that amendment.
On that basis, I take it that amendment No. 17 can be withdrawn. I am inclined to agree that it would be sufficient if the licence were laid upon the Table of each House of the Oireachtas, for information. I think a resolution approving of the draft would be cumbersome and unduly restrictive.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 18 not moved.
Question proposed: "That Section 16 stand part of the Bill."
May I ask a question? The Television Commission was appointed, largely, for the purpose of considering proposals which had been made to the Minister with regard to the running of the television station by—in the absence of a better word—private enterprise. Am I right in saying that under the provisions of Section 16, with the consent of the Minister, a private agency can take over either the whole of the television service or part of it? Am I right in that?
No, the Senator is not right in that. The Senator is referring to subsection (2), I think.
Am I right in that assumption?
Subsection (2) provides for the operation of a relay service to a number of houses, by private enterprise. In other countries, such a thing happens in built-up areas where you have one mast, and a relay service, to a number of houses for an added charge. We propose, under this section, to leave that to private enterprise. In places where there is not good reception, it helps reception, and in built-up areas it helps in getting a better picture by reason of having a higher mast and giving better reception.
It also helps to avoid the fearful ugliness of television masts.
I take it the licence will also apply to the sound broadcasting system of Radio Éireann which, I take it, will be vested in the Authority on the appointed day, that the Authority will also have to be licensed in regard to wavelengths for the sound broadcasting system?
I take it the section does not deal exclusively with the question of television in regard to private enterprise. Does the Minister foresee—particularly in view of the representations made by the cinema owners—the possibility that the cinema proprietors or organisations will make some arrangement with viewers, which I understand happens in America, whereby the cinemas will project their films on to the television screens?
That is a matter for the Authority when it is set up, and for the private interests concerned. The licence will apply to sound broadcasting as well as to television broadcasting.
I just want to make this further point. We rejected amendment No. 16 in the name of Senator O'Quigley which sought to lay down certain principles. With regard to Section 16, I quote from paragraph 106 of the Report of the Television Commission:—
Programme content will necessarily be dealt with by statute in the sense that the general requirements must be defined and the duty cast upon the Authority of ensuring that those requirements are complied with.
We are not doing that at all in regard to Section 16.
There is one further point which the Minister proposes to tell us something about which occurs in paragraph 110 of the Report:—
Not only should the programmes be of Irish origin but they should, as far as possible, be of Irish subject material and by Irish artistes. In this connection the Authority should encourage and foster the development and training of Irish personnel for the television service.
That is where the Commission talk about the idea of having a certain proportion of the Authority of Irish origin.
The quotation goes on:—
It should be the duty of the Authority to ensure by regulation or otherwise that, having regard to the financial considerations, and the availability of talent and subject, an adequate proportion of the programme hours is composed of programmes produced in Ireland.
That seems to me to be a very admirable thing, particularly the idea that Irish personnel should be trained for the television service. We all realise that we could not, perhaps, in the beginning, have a substantial proportion of the television broadcasting done by Irish artistes or even on Irish subjects. It would even be desirable from the purely commercial point of view, from the point of view of getting viewers, that the Authority should be as Irish as possible. I do not mean it should be chauvinistic or nationalistic but it should be distinctive. There is no indication given in this section because we have given no general direction at all to the Authority.
I am sure the Minister has considered paragraph 110 of the Commission's Report. Perhaps, he might tell us whether it is intended to give any general directions to the broadcasting Authority about that. It is a matter of great importance to Irish artistes that the new television stations should be used for the purpose of helping them to make a living and that efforts should be made to train them, where training is necessary. If that has to take place abroad nobody will have any objection.
Is it to paragraph 110 the Senator refers? That was incorporated in the Television Commission's Report when they were dealing with a situation when they envisaged the Authority controlling a service operated by a private group. This is something different. We are setting up the Authority under Section 16 to operate the service as a semi-State service. There is a direction to the Authority in Section 17 of the Bill itself. Furthermore, the Authority will be concerned—and must be concerned— with the provision of Irish programmes in so far as it is possible for them to have a purely native Irish programme included in their day to day programme.
It will be the aim and object of the Authority to increase the Irish programme according as they develop the service. Therefore, it would be incumbent upon them to follow the recommendation in Section 10. They will have to make certain that they will get Irish artistes, Irish actors, Irish programmes and build up within the country a voluntary service among themselves from which they can draw on material to provide a greater share of Irish programmes in the day to day programme of the Authority.
What is meant by an "Irish programme"?
One of the most difficult words to translate into the Irish language is the English word "Irish". The words "an Irish writer" are very hard to translate into Irish. It appears to me that Section 17 deals with the Irish language and kindred matters, but paragraph 110 of the Commission's Report deals with distinctive programmes which could be Irish without being in the Irish language or could be only partly in the Irish language. This is a question of the development of Irish artistes for the purpose of putting on television distinctive Irish programmes, not neessarily in the Irish language.
I realise that the point the Minister makes is a sound one. The Commission were thinking of a different scheme. I think the direction given in Section 17 is not sufficient. The idea the Commission had in paragraph 110 is sound, that it should be the business of the Authority to endeavour to train people, to see that people are trained to find an outlet in the new broadcasting Authority. I take it that the Minister agrees with that. I do not think Section 17 covers it.
I entirely agree with Senator Hayes. That is what we are aiming to get done, exactly. It will be the business of the Authority to proceed along those lines and to build within the country sufficient material from which they can obtain the programme material within the country.
The Minister on the Second Stage in his introductory remarks made reference to the possibility of a V.H.F. network as a solution to the problem of the difficulty arising in getting clear reception from Radio Éireann. Would that V.H.F. require a licence from the Minister? Does he visualise anything being done about it?
The provision of sound broadcasting on V.H.F. will be a matter for determination by the Authority. If they make a recommendation to the Minister, the Minister will include it in the terms of the licence. There will be no difficulty, so far as I can see, to the insertion of that in the licence, provided it is decided that it is the proper thing to do to provide the service on V.H.F. and that it can be done within the financial framework of the Authority.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 17.
Question proposed: "That Section 17 stand part of the Bill."
Section 17 is vague. It is an admirable direction but I was wondering whether, under Section 17, and, perhaps, under Section 16 as well, it would be possible for this Authority—is it legal for them, rather—to farm out this matter of Irish programmes, subject to their own overriding authority, because the creation of an Irish language programme is a matter of great difficulty as everybody knows. Listening to Radio Éireann, it varies very much. Some programmes are admirable and some of them are not so admirable. For example, you get people singing songs without having learned the words. There is nobody apparently to say that you should learn the words before you get your fee and come on the air.
The language used by the Commission is entirely admirable in paragraph 128. They say: "The objective should be to present the Irish language naturally, attractively and efficiently." I was wondering whether there is that power in the Authority. If it were, it would be desirable to exercise it. I hope the power is there.
The Authority is quite free to make arrangements with any outside persons in connection with the provision of programme material. The Authority will be responsible for the broadcasting of the programme itself but under the Bill the Authority is quite free to enter into that class of business. There is nothing to prevent them doing it. In all probability, they will have to do it.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 18.
Question proposed: "That Section 18 stand part of the Bill".
Section 18 and Section 31 seem to be entirely at variance. While Section 18 is wholly admirable and we agree with it, I wonder how it is reconciled with Section 31. Perhaps we could leave it over until we come to Section 31?
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 19.
Question proposed: "That Section 19 stand part of the Bill".
I have a note on my Bill: "Why?". Why does the Minister fix hours of broadcasting?
Could I add a second point? I hope it is because he feels that broadcasting hours would be so short he would insist on longer hours. I think the mistakes of Radio Éireann sound broadcasting should not be repeated here. It is very important to ensure that we are on the air at least as long as the B.B.C. are on the air. If that is the reason for the Minister's control, I do not know what he wants the control for.
The State or Minister will be under an obligation to the licence holders—the people who purchase licences and sets—to ensure they will get fair value for their money and that there will be a sufficient minimum number of hours of broadcasting.
Question put and agreed to.
On Section 18, it occurs to me——
We have finished with Section 18.
SECTION 20.
I move amendment No. 19:—
In subsection (1), line 21, before "may" where it secondly occurs to insert "passed by the advertisements advisory committee."
In moving this amendment, I am endeavouring to give expression to the uneasiness which we all feel about advertising on television. As presented, the Bill leaves the matter much more fluid and with much less control than was recommended initially by the Commission. In the Commission's Report, on page 34, they recommend that there should be statutory provision to deal with the conditions under which advertising will be permitted in programmes, and perhaps the whole of that paragraph 107 is quite relevant. The Commission were conscious of the necessity to keep a grip on advertising, not alone merely on the amount of advertising—as to whether it should be six minutes per hour or a maximum of 10 minutes— and the Minister has taken power under this section, subsection (3), to control the daily time, but I feel that it is not the important feature.
The important thing to control is the form and content of the advertising. Time has, just as it were, only a nuisance value and licence holders may grumble at it, but the important and dangerous features of advertising are all summed up in the expression "form and content". The structure proposed by the Commission differed, as we know, from the television semi-State Authority to be set up under this Bill in that it was envisaged that the Authority, as recommended by the Commission, would be in a more detached position. It would be a commercial organisation responsible for the actual running of the programmes and the making of the programmes within a certain budget.
Still it was recommended that the Television Authority should have the power to make regulations to deal with the form and content of advertising and the effect of these regulations might be, and probably would be, that certain advertising could not be accepted and consequently there would be a financial loss to the company operating the service. That was considered desirable, but now that safeguard has been removed and the whole thing is left to this Authority which is, one might say, fulfilling a dual function.
It has the function of running the programmes and making a financial success of them, and that was what the Commission expected would be carried out by a private body. As well as that, it has the regulating functions in the background. It has this dual function and, in this dual function, the important consideration will no doubt be that this body has to pay its way. It will feel under a grave obligation to do that and my fear is that in that case it will no longer be able to exercise what I might call the type of economic discrimination that is necessary in advertising.
Let me take as an example Aer Lingus advertising. It is a body which has to pay its way. It advertises wonderful holidays abroad and, as it were, tries to attract us all to take our holidays in foregin parts. Of course, if too many followed that advice it would be very detrimental to the country's economy. In the same way, but on a much graver scale, we can relate this to the question of agricultural advertising. It is well known that our farmers are impressionable in the matter of advertising and demonstration. One needs only to go to the Spring Show and walk around the machinery exhibits to see young farmers looking at all the wonderful gadgets, like young boys in a toyshop, and if they had sufficient money or credit, they would have all those wonderful gadgets home with them.
That is a very real problem. It is so real that the first committee set up by the Agricultural Institute was a committee for the evaluation of machinery, so as to be able to advise the farming community what machinery was suited to our conditions and to mark them preferentially, because machines which work well elsewhere under far different conditions are not always suited to conditions here.
I feel then that if we take that paragraph alone, there should be some type of a veto on the machinery that is advertised. For instance, it could carry the stamp of approval of the machinery evaluation section of the Agricultural Institute which would mean that what is advertised is a genuine product. How can we achieve that? Certainly we do not want to foist on our farming community £1,000,000, or maybe £2,000,000 worth of machinery that is not suited to our purposes, merely for the sake of getting in another £20,000 or £30,000 worth of advertising. In this matter, we must look at our economy as a whole.
The other feature is that of consumer advertising. I expect one could include in that kitchen equipment, and one can visualise the impact on the Irish housewife of wonderful gadgets being advertised in her own home, especially when she is told that no self-respecting housewife would be without these aids and that all she has to do is put down half-a-crown and get them on the "never-never" system. Therefore, the impact of these two things, together with the all too free availability of hire purchase, presents a very grave national threat.
That matter would more properly be dealt with on a substantive motion. Is does not arise to that extent on this amendment.
I am making the case that the advertising should first be passed by a committee charged with the responsibility of regulating its form and content. I am just giving an illustration of why this is necessary for the two main sections likely to be led into unnecessary spending by too glib advertising.
I can pass on, then, to the fact that in America advertising is constantly subject to what are called the Fair Trade Laws, which are designed to ensure that the product is really what it is claimed to be. We have not even that type of safeguard here, and it is wholly unrealistic to ask the Television Authority to deny themselves money from what they may regard as perfectly legitimate advertising. Their job is simply to run television as cheaply as possible and to give as good a balance sheet as possible. It is not their job to be the watchdog as to how this is impacting on the other sections of the community.
That is why I move that we should insert in Section 20 that the Authority may broadcast advertisements passed by the advertisements advisory committee. I want that safeguard put in. The ultimate authority and the ultimate decision still remain with the Television Authority. They have to decide whether to take an advertisement or not, but it has to be vetted first. I am not so much concerned with the moral content, because I think that will be taken care of in the general framework of the programmes as a whole and there is no need for advertising to be judged separately from the programmes in that regard, but I am very perturbed about the economic disturbances this unrestricted advertising can have on the other sections of our economy.
I am afraid that I must disagree with Senator Quinlan. We live in a capitalist society, and advertising is free for all, within the normal limits that we impose. It is practised largely by professional practitioners for the firms which employ them, and advertisers would be rather shy people if asked to submit the appeal they propose to make to listeners or viewers to a committee of any kind. You will not get them to accept control by a committee, and if you are to sell space, it is the man who pays the pennies who must play the tune.
I feel much the same as Senator Barry about this amendment. I imagine that if any firm wants to advertise, there must be a contract between it and the Authority, and the question is, whether the Authority would be in a position to impose certain conditions on the advertising agency. I do not know exactly what the present position is. We have sponsored programmes and I take it that there is a contract between those people and Radio Éireann. I do not know whether the establishment of a committee between the Authority and any one of these agencies would be a desirable thing, because in the end, the broadcasting Authority must accept responsibility for all these programmes and there should be no intervening medium between it and the advertisers.
I agree with Senator Quinlan, and I do not agree with Senator Ó Ciosáin that there should be no intervening body between the Authority and the advertisers, because this is something rather different from advertising as we have known it—in the newspapers or on sound broadcasting—which is not as persuasive and does not hit you as much as television advertising will. I should be against allowing the advertising, for instance, of intoxicating liquor on T.V., not that I am a bluestocking or anything like that but I do not think it is good and right that television should be utilised for advertising intoxicating liquor or, indeed, cigarettes, where you have children viewing and being persuaded by the advertisements. There must be some intervening body to judge these sorts of advertisements before they come into the living room of every family owning a T.V. set. I do not think it can be left simply between the Television Authority, who must approach it commercially, and the firm selling or manufacturing something, which must also approach it commercially. Because of that, it is desirable to put in some body as is suggested in the amendment.
I take it that this amendment really goes with amendment 22, which suggests the formation of advisory committees dealing with certain matters including the form and content of advertisements. If amendment 22 were adopted, there would be a committee about the form and content of advertisements, but it would be only an advisory committee, and it is the broadcasting Authority which would have to make up its own mind, following the advice, about any particular advertisement. I do not think you can get away from that. I do not know if it is Senator Quinlan's intention that if the advertising advisory committee decided that a particular advertisement should not be televised, then the broadcasting Authority could not take it. I do not think that position could possibly be allowed and if the Senator's amendment No. 22 were adopted, that would not be so. I think that perhaps it is amendment 22 he really wants, so that the advice of the committee would be available to the broadcasting Authority before they made up their minds as to what advertisements they would take. No matter how you arrange it, the final decision must be theirs.
This amendment, if accepted, would make it obligatory on the Minister to set up an advertisements advisory committee. I do not envisage having that obligation written into the Bill. I propose to consult the Authority in regard to the establishment of this committee or any committees set up under Section 21. There is nothing to prevent the Authority taking advice from a committee on the general policy of advertising and the acceptance of advertisements from business interests, but if we are to have a committee of this nature obligatory, to go into each advertisement to be submitted, you will find that it would be practically saying that this committee should be in permanent session.
They will have to look at and vet and pass each advertisement and then the Authority will have to look at them a second time and decide for itself what it will do in regard to broadcasting and the provision of time for advertisements.
Now, the Television Commission when making its report—it was quoted by Senator Quinlan—had in mind a different type of broadcasting service, a broadcasting service by a private group controlled in a remote sort of way by the State. This Authority is an independent broadcasting authority and we are giving them the job of running this as a business and as a public entertainment service. We set out in Section 20 the provisions under which they will broadcast advertisements and fix charges and conduct that business and I do not see that the provision of this Committee would in fact secure the ends that Senator Quinlan has in mind.
There is nothing to prevent the people concerned, people who want to sell agricultural machinery that is not of material benefit to us in this country on our farms, or to sell American or foreign produced appliances for use in houses that are not absolutely essential or necessary to good living, from advertising in the public Press, advertising by salesmanship or advertising outside the Television Authority. If they can find people who will purchase machinery that they do not really need, I do not see how the establishment of this committee would prevent that sort of thing happening. Furthermore, we are charging the Authority with the responsibility of conducting the advertising side of it as a business and they will have to determine for themselves the questions at issue in relation to the allocation of time to persons who apply for advertisement time on our service.
The Minister said in relation to this matter that he proposed to consult the Authority in regard to the establishment of any committees that might be set up under the Bill. I hope he will take into consideration the fact that some precautions, some system of precautions, may undoubtedly be necessary to deal with what has become a menace in other countries and may become a menace here. While I do not agree with the proposal put forward by Senator Quinlan, I was interested to hear Senator Barry talk about a free for all within certain limits.
Yes, within limits, but there must be limits. I think what we have to be more afraid of than anything else is what has cropped up in a menacing way in the United States of America in recent months, that is, phoney advertisements. So bad has the danger become on the American broadcasting and television services that the Federal Trade Commission was compelled only a couple of weeks ago to file complaints in the court against four major national advertisers, advertisers of tremendously well-known nationally sold products. Those complaints were based on phoney descriptions and exaggerated claims which the Commission were satisfied had no foundation in reality and might lead to extensive sales, under, one might describe it, fraudulent pretences. The consequence of the phoney advertisements on American television networks is that officers of the Federal Trade Commission are maintaining a round-the-clock and a round-the-dial watch on all advertisements that go out over the American networks.
So dangerous has it become to the good name of American advertisers in general, and to the high repute which American advertising agencies enjoy all over the world, that the American Association of Advertising Agents has issued a warning to all advertisers against what they describe as misleading exaggerations, deceptive visual trickery, and the utilisation of television to give a phoney picture or present a picture of a product using all the tricks and artistry of the cinema to exaggerate its value. They have also warned advertisers against any other type of objectionable advertising. They have gone so far as to issue, by circular letter to all American advertising agents, a warning that anyone found contravening the regulations of the Association, or in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission, will be expelled forthwith from the Association.
In view of that, I think there is every need that the Authority should bear in mind the danger which phoney advertising may cause here. Some steps or some machinery should be devised by the Authority to ensure that advertising which goes out over the Irish television network is advertising which can stand up to an examination of the claims made for it. I am glad that the Minister proposes to consult the Authority in regard to the setting up of any committee that might be envisaged under the Act and I hope in some way he will be able to relate that to the dangers which the Americans have discovered.
I do not see any necessity for this amendment at all or for amendment No. 22. I think we have all that is necessary in the Bill in Section 21 and subsection (2) of Section 20. Section 21 allows the Minister to appoint any advisory committee he wants and subsection (2) of Section 20 states that "the Authority may reject any advertisement presented for broadcast, in whole or in part". Surely that is sufficient to deal with the whole point? The Minister may appoint the advisory committee and they have only then to report to the Authority that in relation to such and such an advertisement the product is not what it is claimed to be and the Authority can reject any further advertisements from that firm.
I can see that it is the intention of Senator Quinlan to take some precautions and I can sympathise with the reasoning behind the amendment, that one should take the view that as much precaution as can be taken within reason should be taken. I agree generally with that viewpoint but I suggest to Senator Quinlan that the amendment as it stands would result in the committee having authority and power vested in it higher than that of the Authority being set up under this Bill. I do not think that would be a good thing. My view is that, in the final analysis, we must give the Authority full responsibility for everything and we must place it fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Authority. I do not think it is a good thing to devolve or delegate authority. Oftentimes, power suffers by being delegated.
I am not criticising the amendment in particular because I can quite realise the necessity that can arise for having some control, but I feel, as I say, that that control should ultimately be vested in the Authority, Radio Éireann, as set up under the Bill. There is power under the Bill to set up advisory committees of experts. Advertising is a technical matter in modern times, that is, high-pressure advertising. The idea should be to protect the people from overspending because they are induced by such advertising to buy appliances that do not measure up to the claims made for them. I cannot see how any authority over censorship, or an authority as proposed in this amendment, or Radio Éireann itself, can prevent people from advertising, say, motor cars at £800 or £900 and stop them from advertising within a price range of £700. The same would apply to machinery and other appliances.
I agree it is a desirable thing to prevent overspending, as it leads to an inflationary condition which can do a lot of damage to the national income. I do not think it is the Authority, or any group set up under the amendment, or under the section, that should have the final decision. It is a matter really of Government policy. An inflationary tendency should be controlled by the Minister for Finance. As we all know, the Minister for Finance can always find plenty of ways to deal with a situation of that nature. I agree it is going outside the scope of the section to bring in that suggestion.
Senators should have another look at the amendment to ensure that no power is taken from the Authority, since, in the long run, they will have the final say in these matters. I feel it would take away power that should be vested in the Authority, in Radio Éireann. It would lead to confusion and trouble as to where the powers and functions of one of the boards or other would end.
We have had a very useful debate which shows the uneasiness we all feel in this matter. I should be the first to admit that perhaps the solution I have proposed is not the ideal or the best one. It has been suggested, by, I think, Senator Barry, that we should not have an intervening medium between the advertisers and the Authority, but actually, in the Television Report itself, there were two mediums. There was the television authority which was not the primary authority in financial considerations. It should be far more responsive to national interests and national demands than the present Television Authority, which is an amalgam of an authority watching the national interest and, at the same time, is to run its business profitably, which, I submit, is a very very difficult dual task to place on the shoulders of the Authority and that the finances will probably win out as we had two Authorities mentioned there, the television Authority and the advisory committee.
I agree completely with what Senator Murphy has said about these advertisements, to give a specific example, for drink. Anybody who has looked at American television has seen a young man drinking a long cool draught which looks as if it takes a half an hour to drink but probably only takes about 10 or 20 seconds. That is a direct inducement to that type of spending and it is, as mentioned by Senator Murphy, for the protection of young viewers that that type of advertisement is not in the least advisable. Are we so mercenary-minded that we regard the £20,000 or £30,000 a year we would get from such advertisements as worthwhile, when we consider the amount of increased personal spending it would lead to?
Again, the Minister made the point that these advisory committees should be in permanent session, if they were to deal with all these matters. I do not agree for one moment because surely the business of the committee would be to regulate the form and content of advertisements and keep an eye on them. Once that had been done, once the initial period of work has been got over, surely these committees would have no more onerous work than any other committee. It would be quite possible that most of the advertisements would simply be passed by the Authority as being acceptable in form and content. There would only be the odd case that would need to be referred to this body, and this body, in turn, would be in a position to investigate complaints from representative groups as against specific advertisements that were having a rather bad effect on the community, or on our economy.
There is a very definite place for a committee but not a committee to be set up, as suggested here, in the next session. It is to be purely at the whim of the Minister, and it is to have no existence except purely at the behest of the Minister. Such a committee to be in any way effective should be a statutory committee. Senator Ó Maoláin mentioned the Federal Trade Commission and the Fair Trade Laws in America. I wonder have we any such body here, or can we take the steps the United States are taking to deal with this advertising menace, if a similar menace occurred here? I do not think we have corresponding fair trade rules, but I speak subject to correction.
Again, it was suggested that the idea of an advisory committee was that it should be purely advisory; yet, there are many committees which are advisory in the sense that they can say what may be taken but do not decide what shall be taken. The ultimate decision would be the full responsibility of the Authority, but the advisory committee would deal with the functions, and narrow the field at the start—call it a type of censorship, if you wish. Why should we flinch before that term? It is perfectly legitimate and in America or elsewhere they have the same idea. Surely there are certain bounds beyond which you cannot go. This committee will deal with the form and content of the advertisements to be submitted.
Another point that has been submitted was that perhaps we may get £300,000 or £400,000 from advertisements. I submit that is a very small consideration in that if such advertisements succeed in pushing up our consumer demand—demands for useless machinery—by, say, £3 million or £4 million, necessitating imports to that extent, surely it would be very false economy to take the £300,000 we would get to provide for increased imports of maybe £2 million or more.
Section 20, subsection (3) says:
"the total daily time ... shall be subject to the approval of the Minister." If the Minister could broaden that section so as to retain the power to deal with objections made by the advisory committee on advertising, that might be the solution, because if the Minister makes objections and representations to the Television Authority and if these representations are not effective, then the Minister should have some power to step in on the advice of the advisory committee. Perhaps, subsection (3) could be broadened to that extent and then there would be no need for this quite definite barrier I propose in this amendment.
I think we are talking at cross purposes in this matter. I propose to place only the minimum of restriction on the Authority as regards advertising, in the belief that it will manage its own affairs properly with good taste and good sense and with the responsibility befitting a public authority. I am assuming that this Authority will proceed on those lines in this matter. I do not propose to interfere by way of a statutory committee in the final decision of this Authority on this matter of advertisements. The Authority will be advised and they can get advice on the form and content of advertisements. That is exactly what the Senator mentioned in the statement he made.
They can get advice on that matter, form and content, and a general view will be taken of the programme advertisement content of the programmes each day. I want to leave the Authority free to decide for themselves on this matter. We shall have to see how they operate and conduct themselves and the public will judge the Authority by the way they conduct their business. If the Authority do not measure up to public expectations and if they are doing anything that is not regarded as correct in this matter of advertisements, the matter will be taken to public notice. There will be plenty of free and open discussion.
They can switch to the other channels. If we put out an advertiser, can he not go to I.T.V.?
He can, yes, if he wants to. They can advertise with I.T.V. and we shall be in competition with them for advertising. I do not believe you will have people pressing us to accept their advertisements. We shall have to have people in the field looking——
There will be great competition.
——and making certain they will get a sufficient volume of advertisements to balance up the gap that will be there after the collection of licence fees. I do not think that Senator Quinlan should proceed with this amendment and I would ask him not to.
They will advertise their beer there and we shall not.
They are advertising our beer.
And there are viewers, 30,000, 40,000 or 50,000 looking at it.
They will be drinking it, anyway.
There are just one or two other points that need to be made on this, the difference between the Authority as set up as a public authority and a private enterprise corporation. If a private enterprise corporation made a profit, the other would be expected to plough back the profit for the good of the community as a whole, but it still means that the profit motive is uppermost until this breaks even. I am very very doubtful and sceptical about this. I am almost as sceptical about it as I am of C.I.E. performing this miracle in 1965. That is the basis of my uneasiness.
Leaving everything to the public and to the Minister is essentially just pushing off authority, because the Minister cannot see everything. He cannot have staff available to do everything. Even if he had, it would lead to far too much direct Ministerial control. The statutory committee fulfils the function of being representative of the sections of the people concerned. Perhaps I might make this point better on Section 22. With your permission, Sir, I shall withdraw the amendment but I appeal to the Minister to have a look at the whole problem again and also at subsection (3).
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 20:—
To delete subsection (4).
This is mainly to get some elucidation on subsection (4) of Section 20 which says:—
The Authority shall not accept any advertisement which is directed towards any religious or political end or has any relation to any industrial dispute.
We have left so much to the good sense of the Authority that I cannot see for a moment the necessity for this section. In fact, the decisions called for here are far less than the decisions called for in any of the other matters we have left to the Authority. I have seen in the papers in recent disputes advertisements from both sides setting out their grievances and their case. I think there is nothing at all wrong with that. It is a very necessary step in enlightening public opinion. If it is allowed in the Press here, I do not see why it should not be proper for the Television Authority.
I think the Minister should agree to the suggestion in the amendment because the clause as it stands is entirely too restrictive. After all, religion is the spiritual guidance of the majority of the people, no matter what branch of Christianity they belong to, and politics is current history and we may have past history displayed by way of advertisement relevant to something of current interest. Sufficient control is given in sub-section (2) and if we include subsection (4), it leaves it too restrictive. For instance, the Bishop of Galway is travelling to America in an effort to raise funds for a church in his diocese, and I think it should be possible to display in an Irish television programme different architectural features of what is required and what he would like as a church, but, according to this clause, that could not be done.
I should like the Minister to explain if there is any further reason for having this clause in the Bill dealing with religion, politics, and industrial disputes.
I think it is very important that the Authority of the national broadcasting service should not be drawn into industrial or labour disputes. It is all right to have advertisements dealing with such matters in privately-owned newspapers, but this is a public Authority and I am against its being drawn in on one side or the other in such disputes. In that, I think I shall have the backing of a very large number of the Irish people. Sub-section (4) also prevents the Authority from accepting advertisements directed towards religious or political ends. If advertisements directed towards these ends were permitted, the Authority would have to accept advertisements from any religious group, including advertisements which the majority of viewers might consider very objectionable and offensive. Therefore, the only sound policy is not to permit any advertisements directed towards religious ends to be broadcast; otherwise, the Authority would be placed in a very difficult position. There will, of course, be religious programmes as there have been on Radio Eireann, and appeals for funds for charitable purposes, but these are quite different and distinct from paid advertisements directed towards religious ends, and I think the policy enshrined in this subsection is the correct one.
There is a similar prohibition on advertisements directed towards political ends and that is based on the principle that a national service should not be used in any way to further the interests of one Party as against another. It may be urged by many people outside, and by people here in this House, that there should be freedom for each Party to advertise. That is all right as far as it goes, but when the matter is examined closely, one finds there are poor Parties entitled to representation in this country who would not be in a position to pay for an advertisement on television.
If they put it in Irish, they will get it cheaper.
And still they might not be able to pay. Many Parties in this country were very poor when they started. The Parties out of which the State grew started with very little funds —practically no funds—and I would not say they are very wealthy Parties at the moment.
Even some of the major Parties might not be able to take an advertisement on television and, if the Authority had the power to grant such concession, it could happen that one Party could pay for an advertisement while another could not, which would lead us into an impossible position. For these reasons, I stand by subsection (4) in relation to the matters it deals with, namely, political advertisements, religious advertisements and advertising in connection with industrial disputes. I believe that is a sound policy and I leave it to the House to decide in favour of it.
If there is to be a committee to deal with the form and content of advertisements, these matters would come before it for an opinion and then, as pointed out by Senator Ó Donnabháin, under sub-section (2), the Authority may reject any advertisement presented for broadcasting "in whole or in part". It seems as if we are swinging from one extreme to the other. We are leaving everything to the Authority in one case and, though we are giving them absolute discretion in one sub-section of the Bill, in another sub-section we decide not to trust them with these matters now under discussion. I think the section is unnecessarily restrictive.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 21:—
To delete subsection (5) and substitute the following subsection:—
In acting pursuant to this section the Authority may fix preferential conditions and reduced charges for advertisements so as to benefit advertisers who use the Irish language in their advertisements.
This amendment stands in the name of Senator McGuire who is unable to be present and who has asked me to move it for him. Its purpose is to delete subsection (5) and to substitute another subsection giving the Authority power to fix preferential conditions and reduce charges for advertisements so as to benefit advertisers who use the Irish language in their advertisements. In subsection (5) as it stands, the instructions to the Authority are altogether too detailed.
Indeed, these two whole sections, Sections 20 and 21, contradict the Minister's statement which he has made many times and which he repeated only a few minutes ago, that he proposes to place only the minimum restrictions on the Authority in regard to advertising. Of course, everything depends on what one regards as the minimum. Sometimes one might regard 90 per cent. of the total occupation of somebody as the minimum amount by which one wants to restrict him, but it seems to me that it should be nine per cent. instead of 90 per cent., and subsection (5) of this section violates the Minister's declaration that he desires to give the Authority as much freedom as possible.
Having been given a general line of policy, the Authority should be allowed to exercise its power and handle the details itself. In connection with semi-State boards or, as they are sometimes called, semi-State bodies, though I think State enterprises would be a better general term, it has been stated from time to time that they are free from State control in their day-to-day operations, but if one goes back on the charters of these boards, which are the Acts establishing them, one finds there is very little of this kind of thing.
As it stands, this looks like an example of exercising control beforehand, that is, before the charter is passed, by putting an immense number of restrictions in it, and if that is done, then there is no need for control from day to day.
Of course, you have all the powers in these sections. The Minister is in fact too much is Section 19, too much in Section 20 and too much in Section 21. In this matter, subsection (5) of Section 20, there is unfortunately another implication, and I must say that I object to the implication of discrimination against non-Irish advertisers.
We had that kind of thing in the Control of Manufactures Acts, and it has been found as a result of a great deal of experience over nearly 30 years to be detrimental to the interests of our economy as a whole. The amendment put down by Senator McGuire will not militate at all against Irish industry or Irish advertisers. The Authority will have the power to grant special and preferential rates to Irish advertisers if they think fit, but any specific mention of Irish advertisers in the Bill will give the impression to outside advertisers that they are being discriminated against, although this is not in fact intended.
It is of great importance that non-Irish advertisers, who will provide a large part, and, in certain circumstances, possibly the greater part, of the advertising revenue, should have no feeling that they are not welcome, even if it is only there by implication. I would urge the Minister to alter the Bill by deleting paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (5) and substituting the subsection suggested here, which indicates preferential conditions for advertisements in the Irish language. On the whole, we should be blinding ourselves to the facts if we did not realise that advertisers who will be good enough to use the Irish language will in fact suffer from a certain disadvantage and it is only right that they should get a certain preference.
I do not see the necessity for this amendment. In fact, I cannot see any great difference between it and the subsection involved. This subsection has been inserted in the Bill for the purpose of giving preferential treatment to business people who make use of the Irish language in their advertisements. The interpretation to be put on "use of the Irish language" is a matter of some importance, because it is quite possible that some firms would make use of just a few words of Irish to get this preferential treatment.
I think that point is met in the sub-section itself in the words "The Authority shall have regard to the special position of Irish advertisers (in particular those whose advertisements are wholly or substantially in the Irish language)". The words "wholly or substantially" will meet the point I have in view, because many other people like mvself do not want to see the Irish language being abused in any way or commercialised. The whole purpose of the subsection is to encourage the use of the Irish language in advertisements. It is the policy of the Government and of all of us, to advance the Irish language as much as possible. At the same time, we should make sure that people will not take advantage of the language for any ulterior or selfish purpose. The subsection, I think, is quite adequate to deal with the purposes we have in view.
Subsection (5) aims at two things: One is putting Irish advertisers in a special position, and the other is giving preference to advertisers, whether Irish or foreign, who use the Irish language. I take it that the preference would be given to advertisers, whether Irish or foreign. There is no difference of opinion about the use of the Irish language, but I should like to put to the Minister that the first subsection of Section 20 gives the Authority the powers that are given to it specifically in subsection (5).
Subsection (1) reads:—
The authority may broadcast advertisements, may fix charges and conditions for such broadcasts and, in fixing the charges, may provide for different circumstances and for additional special charges to be made in special cases.
If the Authority may fix charges and conditions, surely one of the conditions it can fix is that if you broadcast in Irish substantially or wholly, you will get a benefit, and surely they can take cognisance of the special position of Irish advertisers, even if you do not put it in specifically in the section. It seems to me that they are given all the power they need.
Senator's McGuire's amendment is directed towards deleting the special reference to Irish advertisers because of the fact that although there is a good deal to be said for it, it is a mistake to write it into legislation, as non-Irish advertisers might consider themselves badly treated. In subsection (1), you have all the authority you want and subsection (5), paragraph (a) reduces the grant of powers to help Irish advertisers. I do not know what the Minister would lose if he adopted the amendment suggested by Senator McGuire and deleted subsection (5) paragraph (a) and then put in the sub-section here suggested, which allows for the use of the Irish language.
The point Senator Ó Ciosáin has made is a good one, but it is already covered, that is, that you do not want the preference for Irish to be a sham and Irish to be used perfunctorily and advertisers to get some kind of advantage for so doing. The Authority can make rules and can provide that Irish should be wholly or substantially used. They have all the power they need without subsection (5) unless it is desired to put in specifically something which, I think, adds nothing to their powers. Senator McGuire's amendment would preserve the right of the Authority to benefit advertisers using Irish. Under subsection (1) of Section 20, they would still have power in special circumstances, if they so desired, to make conditions for advertisers of Irish manufactures which would benefit them.
I think the subsection should stand in its present form. Sub-section (5) (a) and (b) are concerned with general policy, and are not an interference with the day-to-day administration or business of the Authority. Surely we are entitled to give legislative direction to the Authority on matters of policy.
Sub-section (5) conveys, in effect, a clear indication to the Authority of what is expected from them in the matter of preferential rates for Irish advertisers. That is admitted by the Senators who have spoken. It states two things: that taking advertisers as a whole, Irish advertisers may be given preference over foreign advertisers, and taking Irish advertisers alone, those who use the Irish language may be afforded a measure of protection. This sub-section (5), (a) and (b), is really an encouragement to the Authority. It is a fact, as Senator Hayes has said, that it has authority under subsection (1) to go into this business and give preferential rates.
As a matter of fact, Radio Éireann have exercised this reduction in rates in favour of wholly Irish firms for a number of years. It is also a fact that foreign firms have not objected to that. Foreign firms will not regard this provision as a differential against themselves. They recognise that within the country we have a perfect right, in dealing with our own manufacturers and our own advertisers, to give them, if we can, a special rate for using advertising time on this new service. That is all we propose to do here, to give that special rate not alone to firms who use the Irish language but to Irish firms wholly capitalised by Irish capital.
We want to indicate to the Authority that we want to encourage them to do that so that we can encourage Irish firms to take advertising time on the programme, with the end in view, of course, of increasing the output from the firms concerned and to the benefit of the economy of the country. This, of course, is not to be regarded as something that is an imposition. I think we should leave it as it is. I do not see why it should be sought to have the amendment inserted. It weakens the subsection to an extent. It should be left as it is and let us indicate to the Authority what we wish them to do in regard to Irish manufacturers and advertisers generally.
I agree entirely that we should do all we can for Irish firms. The Minister mentioned wholly Irish capital. Does "Irish advertisers" here include branches of English firms?
Sorry; it does not up to now.
It does not include branches of English firms?
Paragraph (b) says ... "may be varied so as to benefit advertisers who use the Irish language". Does that include foreign advertisers?
Only Irish firms? Then you will preclude non-Irish firms from using the Irish language.
No; the Authority can deal with them under sub-section (1) if they want to.
Now the Minister is really blowing hot and cold.
This, in effect, is the old Control of Manufactures Act, high, wide and handsome. It is nothing else when you get it interpreted. Certainly I agree with the Minister's interpretation. The word "advertisers" in the second last line of paragraph (b) is related definitely to the "advertisers" mentioned in paragraph (a). It is "related to the foregoing paragraph," that is to say, paragraph (a).
I agree on the whole with Senator Ó Ciosáin his first remark that he could not see any great difference between the two. Do not forget that I was concerned, in the case I made for this amendment, to make it quite clear that I do not want to give a picture of discrimination and there is a picture of discrimination given, particularly in light of the Minister's last reply. The Minister hinged it all on the Irish language but we find, if we probe into it, that if a foreign firm uses the Irish language, it will not get any benefit. It is to be excluded. One could even probe further and ask if a subsidiary firm, "such and such a firm (Ireland) Ltd.", will get the benefit. Presumably, they would if 51 per cent. of their capital were owned by the Irish people and presumably they would not, if only 49 per cent. was so owned. Really this whole section suffers from the difficulty that too much Minister was put into it. That is the whole trouble— too much direction was put into it. That is really what Section 20 suffers from.
I could not accept the Minister's statement that sub-section (5) is an encouragement to the Authority and I could not accept his conclusion that it will better the economy of the country. We have untold evidence that it does nothing of the sort. The best way of reducing advertising charges would be to build up the advertising revenue. The more successful the Authority becomes, particularly as regards its revenue from advertising, the lower the advertising rates can be made and the lower the rates, the easier it will be for Irish advertisers to use the service. I mean the genuine small Irish firms. That is a small piece of reasoning in which I do not think there is any loophole. It is all right to put it this way. This all strings together; these general directions in Section 17 and Section 18 lead up to this specific direction.
Let me be frank about it. If we had a proper regard for the position of the Irish language in this matter, we would press this amendment but I think on the whole we have clearly got an indication of what it means and having had our discussion, I think the amendment should be withdrawn.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed: "That Section 20 stand part of the Bill."
I want to make a glancing reference to sub-section (3). This is a matter not of the "why" of advertising but of the "when". It is something that has caused controversy and irritation in England. I think the Minister should insist—and I should like the House to agree with me on this—that each separate hour should be limited, that each hour must not be overweighted with advertisements. I would ask the Minister to consider amending that subsection on Report Stage, changing the words "total daily" to "total hourly". It is the third word in the subsection. Remembering the experience which the British have had and the annoyance it has caused, the overweighting of the hour is a matter that can be quite frustrating.
I think I have all the powers needed in the section, as already drafted, if that is what the Senator has in mind.
I shall look into the matter again.
The advertisers who buy a lot of space tend to overload certain peak viewing hours.
I should like to say something about a matter that has already been mentioned. It seemed to me that the amendment was not quite satisfactory and, therefore, I should like to say what I have to say on the section. Paragraph (a) of sub-section (5) enables the Authority to give special rates to those who use the Irish language as well as those who are Irish. I think the question ought to be asked here, from the point of view of the advertiser: will it or will it not be an advantage to use the Irish language? I suggest that the granting of preferential rates by the Minister gives a clear implication that it will be to the disadvantage of the advertiser, in the ordinary way, to use Irish; otherwise, you are compensating him for a benefit he already has. It is only if using Irish is a disadvantage to the advertiser that he has any right to compensation and, therefore, it seems to me that the Bill, under the authority of the Minister, is clearly implying that to use the Irish language in an advertisement is a disadvantage. I should like to hear what the Minister has to say in defence of that.
I intended to tell Senator O'Donovan, before he said he was withdrawing the amendment, that I proposed to look into the matters referred to on that point. It has been referred to now by Senator Sheehy Skeffington and I hope to look at it again between now and Report Stage.
We are dealing with sub-section (5) of Section 20 and it seemed to me, while the discussion was going on, that "Irish advertisers" might be changed to "advertisers of Irish products". It seems to me that although the Minister has stated that at present there is preferenial treatment, it must be very hard to finance and surely Irish products are what we want to advertise more than anything else.
I want to express the hope that what happens on I.T.V. will not be held out as a reason for inflicting the same on Irish television. It was suggested in the debate that, if we do not accept the advertisements, they will be accepted by I.T.V. and beamed across to 30,000 or 40,000 or more of our people, those north of the favoured line from Sligo to Dublin. I suggest quite definitely that we should go on record that two wrongs do not make a right and that even if something wrong is going across on I.T.V., U.T.V. or the B.B.C. and being received by some of our people, it is not the slightest excuse for this new Authority inflicting the same wrong on the whole of the nation.
Considering that it is a wrong.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 21
I move amendment No. 22:—
In subsection (1), lines 51 and 52, to delete all words from "may from time to time" to the end of the subsection and substitute "shall appoint advisory committees dealing with
(a) religion,
(b) national culture and language,
(c) the form and content of advertisements,
(d) the welfare and education of children, and
(e) agriculture.
The Minister may, after consultation with the Authority, appoint other advisory committees or advisers."
In moving this amendment, I am struck by the fact that the main safeguards and provisions recommended by the Television Commission, which was a very widely based and representative commission, one by one, have not been accepted by the Government. In fact, I think it is right to say that 80 per cent. of the recommendations of the Television Commission, except where they were dealing in platitudes, were not accepted. I might briefly allude to Section 4, with the provision for a statutory rotation of membership, the section dealing with control of advertisements by statutory provision, and, above all, the guaranteeing, as I suggest in this amendment, of a statutory position for the various committees—that they should exist independently of the whim of the Minister or the Authority.
As we read the section, it says that the Minister may from time to time appoint advisory committees or advisers. That, to my mind, seems to minimise far too much the rôle that should be played by these advisory committees. The Minister may "from time to time appoint" and it seems likewise that he may leave them to die when he wishes and that is just the end of them—they have no statutory right to continue. In such a difficult undertaking as the Television Authority, where we just have these nine members, it is impossible to expect them to be experts in every field.
In fact, the appointment of experts has rather been decried here, and I agree with that view where it means experts who can contribute only in one field and no more, for instance, an expert agriculturist who has little or no knowledge of the many other branches that television should be concerned with. He would be wasting his own time and probably would not be a valuable member of such a board. He would be concerned only with one special aspect.
The same applies to the various other committees, such as education, very specialised education, say, a specialist in University education who would be concerned with that one field again, and would not make any further contribution to the Authority. That specialist contribution must come from the advisory committees and, for instance, we should have a statutory committee in existence which would be renewable in three or five years, or whatever the statute says. I would go further and say that such a committee should, if possible, be guaranteed the right to report, to make a very brief report which would show precisely what it was doing and whether it was being, in effect, used by the Authority or the Minister.
I do not wish to take up the time of the House because the amendment speaks for itself. What I wanted was that a certain number of committees should be statutory committees and exist independently, where it is the wish of the Minister from time to time to appoint such committees and, in addition to those committees, the Minister should have, as suggested in the section here, power to appoint ad hoc committees. In this amendment, I am not ruling out that we should have the statutory committees as recommended by the Television Authority, namely, (a) religion, (b) national culture and language, (c) the form and content of advertisements, (d) the welfare and education of children and (e) agriculture.
While I realise that the idea behind this amendment is sound enough, I am afraid that its acceptance would place an impossible task on the Authority. The difference between the section as it stands and the proposed amendment is that the Authority would be left to their own discretion as to whether they should have a committee or any advisory body to advise them on the matters set out here, but if the amendment were accepted, it appears to me that whatever question would arise, the Authority would be bound to set up a committee to advise them, when, perhaps, it would not be necessary at all.
There is a great difference between the word "may" in these cases and "shall". The word "may" leaves it to the discretion of the authority but the word "shall" would compel them to do it and, in my opinion, there should be no compulsion brought to bear on the Authority as to what they should do in any given circumstances. They should be left free to exercise their own discretion. That is why I think that, perhaps, the Senator should reconsider this amendment. I should like to hear what the Minister has to say on it.
I have gone into this matter fairly fully and I have read the Report of the Television Commission on this subject. I might point out again that the Commission made its report on the understanding that the service would be provided by a private group. While advisory committees on the subjects mentioned in this amendment by Senator Quinlan may be desirable and may possibly be set up in due course—and probably will—I do not consider it wise to prescribe in legislation the terms of reference of such committees. When you set up such a committee, you have to prescribe its terms of reference. A great deal of this will be a matter of experience. That is my view. We shall have to wait and see how the Television Authority operates and the Authority's opinions on these matters must be given a considerable amount of weight.
The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs will consult the Authority a good deal before he establishes a committee and also on the question of advisers who are provided for in the section. I do not wish to prescribe in legislation the terms of reference because it would cause a certain rigidity in the committee. It would prevent them from, perhaps, advising on matters they should advise on and instruct them to advise on matters on which the Authority might not need advice at all. I think it is best to leave it as it is. We shall have to wait and see how the service operates.
I think it is much better to have consultation with the Authority on the establishment of these committees. You have to be certain before you set up the committee that you will get people to sit on it. You could set up a committee and you might not get people to sit on it. I think Senator Quinlan should not press this amendment. He should leave the matter as it stands in the section. We shall leave it at that.
The Minister has indicated that he intends to consult with the Authority in regard to these matters. I take it that the Authority will have regard to the views expressed in this House and in the Dáil also in due course with regard to the sections of this Bill which have been so well discussed. I should like to suggest that the committee of which I spoke on the Second Stage— the citizens' watchdog committee— would be much more important than any of the other committees mentioned in Senator Quinlan's amendment.
Secondly, the suggestion made, I think, by Senator Barry for a listener research organisation from the very outset of this television service would also be an all-important matter. According to Section 21, "the Minister, after consultation with the Authority may from time to time appoint advisory committees or advisers". There is immense power here and no doubt, when the new television service becomes operational, there will be further topics on which not alone expert advice but possibly amateur advice, representing the ordinary views of the people, may be of advantage to the Authority.
I have no doubt that in the exercise of the powers conferred in this Bill advantage will be taken, where required, of the possibility of setting up a committee on a certain subject or of securing an adviser on that subject.
I, however, feel that one of the big defects in our sound broadcasting system was the amount of misunderstanding which existed throughout the country in regard to many matters under the control of Radio Éireann—misunderstanding which led to ignorant criticism due to lack of the facts in regard to many of the complaints which inspired letters in the newspapers and speeches, indeed, by public men. Many of the criticisms we heard of sound broadcasting by ordinary men and women in the street could, if channelled through some source which was not difficult to get, be of advantage to the Director of Broadcasting and to the Radio Éireann staff as a whole, but there was no way in which that could be done, short of somebody going to quite a considerable amount of trouble.
My suggestion on Second Stage was a watch-dog committee which would operate under the auspices undoubtedly of the Minister and in the full knowledge of the Authority, would cooperate with the Authority and be in a position to assess public opinion in regard to programmes or complaints, would receive complaints, analyse them, get the facts conveyed to the public and, where it was found necessary, convey the complaints to the Authority. I hope that when the Minister is consulting the Authority on these matters, he will bear in mind these two points: the citizens' watch-dog committee dealing with complaints, and the very important suggestion made by Senator Barry with regard to listener research.
Senator Ó Maoláin is surely right, and as that does not always happen, I am taking this opportunity of supporting what he says. This amendment seems to me to be a well-intended amendment, but I think it is hard to resist using the words "officious" in relation to it. It is presumptuous for us to try to tell the Authority what it should do in connection with the committees that it will need as if we knew better. The Authority have the right to act in setting up as many committees as they like. For us to presume to name five of them and, by implication, to regard all others as less important is, I think, a mistake. It would be monstrous on our part. We should leave this to the Authority.
I agree, furthermore, that some kind of listener research committee would be at least as important as most of these committees suggested by Senator Quinlan. It is very important that the Authority keep in touch with listener reaction through organised listener research. I should also like to feel that when they find out the facts about listener reaction, these facts should be faced, and to express the hope that no sub-committee will be established for the purpose of shutting the eyes of the Authority to such facts.
I have no objection whatsoever if Senator Ó Maoláin wants to set up a watch-dog committee.
Surely he could think of a nicer name than that.
The committees mentioned are concerned with the more positive uses of television. The watch-dog committee would deal largely with light entertainment and I have no objection to that, but I do feel that there is far too much State control and the Authority is too dependent on State control. This is a hundred per cent. State service in every way and that may be all very well while we have angels in power like the Governments we have had for the past 20 or 30 years, but when another form of Government takes power, then there would be danger.
The most successful television and broadcasting service in Europe is that of Monaco which is completely State-controlled.
It does seem that when we set up State bodies, we try to spread the control somewhat by having members appointed by outside organisations who are independent of the Government. Such bodies have the right to nominate members and are always fighting, and rightly so, for that right. An example of that is the Agricultural Institute, but in this case it is not easy to see how that right should be conferred. In other words, the members of the Authority must be appointed by the Government as proposed under this Bill, but that should not hold in regard to the advisory committees which should have the tempering effect of outside bodies—the private enterprise side—and it should be possible to devise advisory committees and give certain bodies the right to nominate members to them.
Agriculture comes to mind immediately with the Agricultural Institute, the Department of Agriculture, and possibly some of the leading agricultural organisations. With their assistance, it would be quite easy to get a very powerful and useful advisory committee on agriculture. I should like to see statutory provision made for that and I should like to have an assurance from the Minister that, having consulted with the Authority, he would set up these committees as committees with a definite period of office, say, three years; that they would be renewable afterwards; and that such an arrangement would not be as loose as the phrase "from time to time" seems to suggest.
It has been suggested by Senator Sheehy Skeffington that we are being officious in this and, if so, I am glad, because we are in agreement with the Television Commission which was one of the best group of experts, representative of all interests, which the Government appointed. The Commission listed those five committees as a matter of far more consideration than any other ad hoc committees desirable from time to time.
I should like to draw the attention of Senator Quinlan to Paragraph 76, at the bottom of page 26, of the Report of the Television Commission, because he is inclined to run away with the idea that these committees will be the solution of everything. We are liable to lose sight of what the Commission itself realised and I quote:
All proposers in evidence before the Commission accepted that they would necessarily have to be, and should be, guided by advisory committees on certain aspects of the programme material.... The power to obtain such assistance would not relieve the Authority of the ultimate responsibility, or clothe the advisory committees with any function other than to give advice.
I think that should be borne in mind.
We are not suggesting any more.
The section provides that the Minister may set up the committees and, by virtue of that, the Minister can be made aware of public demands for a committee, or of a sectional demand for a certain committee. Deputies can ask questions as to why a committee is not established, or as to when a committee is likely to be established. That is, of course, in regard to any committee which may be needed, or which would be in a position to give useful advice to the Authority. Motions can be put down in both Houses of the Oireachtas on that subject by reason of the fact that the Minister is charged with the function of setting up a committee. As I have already indicated, I propose to consult the Authority on this matter because it is one on which we need experience.
Also, as has already been pointed out by Senator Ó Maoláin, a committee will not necessarily be the end of everything. Its investigations and advice will not be the end of everything because the Authority will be responsible in the long run, and all it can do is look for the best advice that can be got. I do not wish to be bound to the establishment of a committee of a very permanent nature. I see that a committee might be needed for a short time to advise the Authority on some specific matter, as well as in a general way on, for instance, agriculture. It would be a ridiculous business to have a committee called together to advise the Authority on a specific matter and keep it in permanent session, or give it a permanent life, and the same applies to an adviser. An adviser could be called in on a specific matter —a programming adviser or somebody like that—and his services would not be required full time.
I can assure the House that, wherever I deem it necessary, a committee will be established and I think the same would apply to any Minister for Posts and Telegraphs who follows me. We shall see that the Authority will not fail, or will not be hamstrung for the want of a committee, that it will have all the advice necessary, and we shall try to get the best possible people to sit on these committees, people qualified to give advice in particular fields of activity. We shall follow that pattern as far as we possibly can and try to have balanced committees, representing the various points of view that would be affected by a committee decision advising the Authority. We can only hope that we shall do our best in this matter of committees and see that the best possible advice is got.
But surely a committee has a slightly greater function and use than that outlined by the Minister? For instance, if we take "(b) national culture and language" it would seem that the desirability of keeping under review how television is helping to develop national culture and the language would require a committee that would examine the question periodically and be, to use Senator Ó Maoláin's word, a "watch-dog" on the Authority in that regard? If such a committee did not have permanence, it would have nothing.
Such a committee could be permanent, but why tie the hands of the Authority to have them all permanent? Some of them might not need to be permanent.
I feel compelled to warn the Minister against this watch-dog of Senator Ó Maoláin's, because it seems to find favour. It has not been defined as to whether it is to speak with the voice of an Irish wolfhound or of an Alsatian or even of a little Peke. I do not know if the watch-dog is to come under the protection of the Minister or of the Authority, but there is always the risk that the watch-dog will suffer a certain amount of mental or even physical cruelty and may even require the protection of the Blue Cross after a very short time.
He may even be bilingual.
The discussion of this amendment has taken up a lot of our time, and I think the Minister himself put his finger on the most important aspect of the question, namely, whether these committees envisaged by the Senator are to be permanent or temporary. I imagine that if we were to insert an amendment into this section making it obligatory on the Authority to set up a committee for any specific purpose, that committee would be a statutory committee and would therefore be permanent.
It would be better to leave this question to the discretion of the Authority, who will be at liberty themselves to set up whatever committees they consider desirable for any specific purposes, and we should not tie their hands and make it obligatory on them to set up these committees. No doubt, as the Minister said, they will, as time goes on and experience shows the need, set up committees. They will have the power to do this, and it would be very unwise to make it obligatory on them to set them up, when perhaps they would not be necessary at all.
There is no such intention in the amendment as is read into it by Senator Ó Ciosáin, because the amendment specifically says that the Minister may, after consultation with the Authority, appoint other advisory committees or advisers. In other words, the idea was that certain committees would be permanent and given permanent statutory recognition and that others would be appointed from time to time as the Minister, after consultation, saw fit.
It has been said that because the service is now provided by the Television Authority and not by a private group, less vigilance is necessary. I hold that far more vigilance is necessary now, because previously, as recommended by the Television Commission, there were two bodies—the private group concerned with the financial and day-to-day running of it, and the Television Authority which was behind them and more or less, to use Senator O'Reilly's phrase, the watch-dog of the people. They were there, more concerned with the nation and the national effects than with the actual financial considerations of running the service. Now these two functions are merged into one. It does not matter whether we say that it is to be called a public authority or not, the two functions are merged, and in those circumstances the financial consideration will be foremost—does this service pay? I suggest that a service that has so much power for good as television has should not place foremost the financial consideration.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is the amendment being pressed?
I think we have made the point sufficiently, and, as the Minister has indicated, in a few years' time, when we see how the Authority is shaping, we may follow up with a motion.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 23 not moved.
Section 21 agreed to.
Amendment No. 24 not moved.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Amendment No. 25 is not in order, in accordance with the statement of the Cathaoirleach at the beginning of business.
Amendment No. 25 not moved.
SECTION 22.
Question proposed: "That section 22 stand part of the Bill."
On the previous day, I referred to this question of calling a thing a spade which is not a spade. In paragraph (a) there is the expression "broadcasting licence fees". The interpretation indicates that this is not broadcasting but receiving apparatus, and I therefore think that irrespective of the fact that we have to look back to the Act of 1926, this expression causes confusion, and I cannot see why it should not be considered on Report Stage.
With regard to sub-paragraph (i), will the Minister continue to collect the fees and give an equivalent amount to maintain the Authority?
I thought the Authority would be able on its own initiative and responsibility to collect the fees which the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs collects at present in respect of receiving sets for sound broadcasting. I do not know what, if any, fee is paid for television sets, but I take it that there is no fee being charged at present other than the fee for a normal receiving set. But it seems from this that the Minister will still collect the fees for all sets in the future. I wonder am I correct in interpreting this section in that manner?
The first matter raised by Senator Ó Donnabháin is, as he says himself, purely a drafting matter. The second is, of course, that the licence fees on receiving sets shall be collected in so far as they can be possibly collected.
Yes, up to a point. We are handing over a service to the broadcasting Authority. At present the Department of Posts and Telegraphs collects the licence fees on ordinary sound broadcasting receivers and the collection by the Authority of the fees shall be a matter for arrangement between the Minister and the Department. It would not be expected that the Authority could be immediately in a position to collect the licence fees, but whenever they feel like it, and are in a position to do so, there will be discussions between the Authority and the Minister and the matter will then be dealt with by arrangement.
The Authority will then have the powers which the Minister has at present, of going into houses and seeing if there are receiving sets there, if there could be receiving sets without an aerial.
In connection with the financing of this, my figures show that the new television broadcasting service is expected to finance sound broadcasting to the extent of about £200,000 a year because the breakdown of the figures is that as shown in the Report of the Television Commission, the sound broadcasting side of Radio Éireann will have to pay to the Government £125,000 per year for services now supplied free. In addition to that, it will have to carry its own superannuation scheme, etc. I have not got the figures for that but I suggest that £20,000 to £25,000 a year would have to be supplied under that heading.
Then television is to make inroads into the present sponsored advertising programmes in Radio Eireann which at present bring in £90,000 a year and it is not unreasonable to estimate that at least half of that may be lost to the other medium. That adds up to almost £200,000. In addition, £500,000 is being provided in the next section to equip Radio Eireann better, to provide new sound studios, etc., and to help to get better coverage in the country. That is all very desirable no doubt, but yet the obligation is laid on the Authority to pay back the money, and surely if you borrow £500,000 a resonable provision for repayment, including interest, will involve £40,000 or £50,000 per annum. All this adds up to at least £250,000 per annum and the only offsetting factor is the fact that it is suggested that the sound broadcasting fee be increased from 17/6d. by 2/6d., which would bring in about £50,000, leaving a matter of £200,000 to be met by the sound broadcasting end of Radio Eireann.
It is expected that the new Television Authority will pay its way and to provide that subsidy to Radio Eireann sound broadcasting each year. I suggest that it is totally unrealistic. If the television service pays its way, it will be a major miracle, but if it can contribute £200,000 a year to help the sound broadcasting, it will be a greater miracle.
I was wondering if at this stage the Minister—and mind you, I am not pressing him or advising him that he should—intends to give any indication in regard to what fee it is intended to charge viewers. It would be no harm to point out that in view of the cost of maintaining a station, a fairly substantial fee will need to be fixed. It would be no harm if we did what has been done in other countries. As far as I have correct information, I think the fee charged in Hungary is £19, whereas in Spain it appears to be the cheapest in Europe at £1 10s. 0d. In England, it is £3 and if you have a radio as well, the fee is £4, while in Holland, there is a cheap licence of £3. It seems to me that if we can, we should level our fee around £5 which seems to be the European average. I wonder if the Minister has any indication so far as to what the fee is to be? I expect it is a little too early to tell us.
In all this legislation, and especially on Section 22, we must ask ourselves will it harm other sections of the Irish people or will it endanger their livelihood? I would urge upon the Minister on this section to remember the claims—and I think they have genuine claims—of that the cinema-owners are compelled I am not going to spend long over this but I think it is a matter of justice that should be considered. We are now virtually spending something like £2,000,000 and £500,000 per annum in setting up what is really something which will endanger the prospects of the cinema-owners and I ask the Minister to keep that in mind as a matter of genuine Government policy.
I shall not delay over this but when the Budget comes in, or when the financial year is being reviewed, let him and the Government keep in mind that the cinema owners are compelled to pay tax to give their form of entertainment, whereas we are putting money into the television service to provide its entertainment. It is to some extent unjust. I see that the Leas-Chathaoirleach feels that I am out of order to some extent but it is a matter of common justice and I would urge it on the Minister.
I believe, in regard to a service like this, that the people who want it should pay for it. I think while the State must subsidise this and must charge for advertisements, possibly the only people who could afford to advertise are companies based outside the economy of the country and who will hope to derive benefit from those advertisements from the industrial North and North Midlands in Britain. I think that would be a wholly undesirable development. While like Senator Stanford, I might risk being out of order, I think I am more in order than he was, and it strikes me that the average adult household pays, at a very minimum, 10/- a week for cinema entertainment, while they want to get television, with five times the amount of entertainment, for about 2/- a week.
I think we ought to keep away from the lack of principle—I was going to say the principle—of making the taxpayers provide this service free for the people who want it or almost free at a sort of peppercorn rent for the people who want it. I believe the trouble with people who view television is that they are inclined to over-use it. The amount they pay per hour per person is so small that they ought to be able to pay a reasonable price, and it should not be a burden on the rest of the community. I am not interested in what they pay in Spain—£2 10s.—or in Holland which is around about the same amount, or in whatever they pay in other countries. At least, we ought to make it an economic business and make those who want television pay for it. I know it involves a bit of a hue and cry but there is worse evil done by the fact that no one in Ireland will be able to use the advertising service except those who hope to sell largely in Britain and other countries. It will be levelled indirectly against native-based Irish industry. That will not be the intention but the effect. I am not interested in intentions; I am interested in effects and results.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The fact that there is a particular bad habit in the country is no reason why we should get into the bad habit of referring to matters which are not germane to the Bill before the House.
It is about money and how it is raised.
I was making a calculation while Senator Stanford was speaking. If we are injuring the cinemas, they are already being injured, because there are many people who are already receiving B.B.C. transmission. The estimate of the Commission, and I am sure it was a conservative estimate, was that £1,000 per day would be spent on advertising. Somebody will pay for that. Senator Burke thinks the service is free to the Irish people. I do not think the newspapers will lose. They will lose some of it perhaps but somebody will pay for it, and I suggest it is the consumer who will pay. I think we ought to keep that firmly in front of us when we talk about these costs because as well as the cost of the sets, there will be the £1,000 a day.
We must always bear in mind that if we outprice the service on the consuming end, by making the licence fee too high, a certain chain of events will follow. If the consuming fee were too low, the advertisers would not come in at the other end, at the production end. I know Senator Burke did not seriously mean that the State should have regard to the fact that it is estimated that a family spends 10/- a week in cinema entertainment and have regard to that standard in pricing the television licence. I know he did not have that in mind, and that he did not actually suggest it, but if that should be adopted, we would then have an even higher licence fee than they have in Hungary, £19. I suggest what would happen then would be that the number of sets would not grow as quickly as we thought they would, but it would mean that the number of viewers would be less and, therefore, the amount of advertising would be less, and we would not get this notional figure of £1,000 a day that Senator Barry seems to regard as a standard.
The Report of the Commission mentioned that figure.
If we had too high a licence fee, I do not think we would arrive at the figure of £1,000 a day income from advertisements. I feel it would be much better to have a reasonable licence fee, similar to the European average which, to me, seems to be around £4 or £5. In that way, we would have a higher number of viewers and we would have more sets, and with more viewers, we would have a higher income from advertisers.
The Authority should have regard to the amount paid by the average family for entertainment, culture, and adult entertainment, and they could provide the people of this country with better facilities than they ever enjoyed before. We should be realistic. This is not a very well-off country. It is very pleasant to live in, and very comfortable, but we are not terribly well-off and, if we want to have television, we must pay for it. We cannot just push it on somebody else's back. We should go slowly, or go hungry for television, if we cannot pay something reasonable for it. The State is generous in giving £500,000 to help to establish television and I hate to think that one of the things we shall have to view—possibly the only thing ad nauseam—will be advertisements for a new type of detergent. They seem to be the people who are always able to advertise in a bigger, broader and better way than anybody else. If every time we look at a programme from Radio Eireann, we shall see some new type of detergent which we never saw before, beamed across to us, if they think they can sell more in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, the West Riding, such as Leeds and Sheffield and other West Riding cities, I would rather pay a little more.
I agree with Senator Burke that it should be self-reliant financially, and self-reliant in many ways, but I do not think the best way of making it reliant in the ultimate is to out-price it in the beginning. I still think we shall have to have regard to what the majority of other countries say in this matter. It is not so long since the wireless licence fee was raised. It is still not very high, having regard to the good service which so many of us feel it gives, but when it was raised, I think Senator Burke will remember there was a fair amount of—to put it mildly—criticism from some of his colleagues in regard to the raising of that fee. It is a good thing to see Senator Burke, who is a responsible person, coming down in favour of making the Authority self-reliant, but my argument is that if we err too far in Senator Burke's direction, we may defeat the purpose we have in mind.
I still argue that if the licence fee is too high, fewer people will buy sets, not because of the price of the sets, but because of the maintenance cost, part of which is the licence fee and, therefore, in the initial stage, the number of sets will be reduced and therefore the number of viewers reduced and, therefore, the number of advertisers reduced. In the final analysis, they have regard to the number of people to whom they will put their notion across, to whom it will be possible to put their idea across, so I still argue that the licence fee should not exceed the European average.
I do not want to say any more but I should like the Minister to have regard to what I did say. I do not say that should be the only consideration. We ought to have regard to the facts I have stated, that the average family pays a considerable amount for entertainment and sports of all sorts. There will be many people who will travel to Twickenham to see the Rugby match who, perhaps, in two years' time will get a much better view of the match on television than at Twickenham.
It would cost more to go to one football match than some people propose to pay for licence sets over five years and the same applies to all the other facilities which are very often available to people in the cities but which unfortunately are not available to us in the country—and many of these are on the cultural side. I had better not proceed further on that line; I should like to hear what views the Minister has in connection with this and whether we all have said enough on it.
As far as licence fees for television sets and radio sound broadcasting are concerned, I shall bear in mind all the factors that have been mentioned by Senators in tendering their advice on what the amount should be. I should like also to have the views of the Authority on this and I propose to consult the Authority before I fix the fees for the proposed new television and sound broadcasting receiving sets.
Television is here. As has already been announced by some Senators when the Bill was introduced, it is already in competition with the cinema. Our service will add somewhat to the competition, I presume, but nevertheless it is here. Whatever concessions can be made or will be made is not really my business or function. It is a matter for the Minister for Finance and we shall have to leave it at that.
That will cost you money, too; it will cost something to make that concession.
It will. A grant of £500,000 over the next five years is provided under the section. It is intended to take the Authority along the early years and bridge the gap between income and expenditure on sound broadcasting only and there is no question whatsoever of television being asked to subsidise sound broadcasting. At present Radio Eireann is supported by licence fees bringing in a revenue of £430,000 per annum, plus advertising revenue amounting to £100,000 odd a year, a total of £530,000 as against expenditure of roughly £650,000 per year, the difference of £120,000 odd being in respect mainly of services rendered by the Post Office, the Office of Public Works and the Stationery Office. The chief item in the list is the sum for collecting licence fees by the Post Office which costs roughly £100,000 per year. It would be misleading to describe the operation of Radio Éireann in recent years as being conducted at a loss as though that were inevitable. In fact, Radio Éireann has worked to a formula agreed with the Department of Finance whereby current expenditure might be met up to the limit of prospective income from licence fees and advertising. There is no obligation to give the Authority this subsidy for sound broadcasting at the rate of £100,000 per year at all. I am not tied to that sum which can be spread over five years. What is hoped is that at the end of the five-year period, sound broadcasting operation will be conducted without a loss.
Out of advertising and increased fees and whatever economies the Authority may be able to exercise in operation.
That does not sound promising.
If we do not get that, we shall have to come back to the Oireachtas and have a reappraisal of the whole situation. That matter can be fully discussed and dealt with then under Section 22.
Are you proposing to increase the fees for sound broadcasting?
That will have to be worked out with the Authority—what the Authority will be asked specifically to do to become a self-supporting Authority. I am not in a position to go into the actual determination of what advertising fees should be or matters of that kind now. I should have to go fully into the figures with the Authority over the course of operations in its first or second year to determine what exactly should be done to make it self-supporting. If it is found that we have subsidised sound broadcasting at the end of five years and that the Authority on the other side is not a paying operation—Section 5 limits the subsidy period to five years —we shall be back to the Oireachtas. Whoever is Minister for Posts and Telegraphs then will have to deal with the situation which will then exist.
There is one fear I might express on this section. I cannot see how you can get out of the measure anything more than is in it. There is an increase in the fee for sound broadcasting of half-a-crown and we can easily calculate what it will bring in. We cannot see more licences being taken out for sound broadcasting and we must see advertising income for sound cut down by the new medium. Also other obligations are put on sound. I am I think, voicing the sentiments of the people south of the line from Sligo to Dublin when I say that we shall be depending on sound broadcasting probably for four or five years or more and we do not want the standard of sound broadcasting to deteriorate in any way or to have any more of those commercials intruding into the programmes.
I do not think there is anything further I can usefully add. I hope the Authority will not provide sound broadcasting programmes inferior to what we have at present. I hope they will aim at a high standard and keep to a high standard.
It is the definite intention of the Minister that broadcasting services like many of the other State-sponsored activities will be put on a paying basis and stand on their own feet. I suppose we shall have to get an assurance from the Minister and that it will be his responsibility to see that they are not interfered with too much for high State reasons or national considerations. They may come to us in five years and say: "We could have done this or that but it was not in the interests of culture or whatever you like and we have put on the type of programmes that did not make the studios pay." That is one of the considerations.
That is why we are leaving the Authority free in the conduct of its day to day programmes.
Question put and agreed to.
Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7.15 p.m.
SECTION 23.
Question proposed: "That Section 23 stand part of the Bill."
This section proposes to give the Authority £2,000,000 as a capital sum on a repayable basis. This applies to Section 24 as well. One wonders whether any calculations have been made which would show any likelihood of the money actually being paid. The total cost is £2,000,000 under this section and £500,000 under Section 22, making £2½ million for the first five years. To that, one must add, according to the Reservation to the Report, certain losses on advertisements to Radio Éireann and certain losses in newspaper advertising estimated at £1½ million.
It is fair to add that the same people who made that calculation calculated that at the end of five years, there will be an extra £1,000,000 being spent on advertisements. For the first five years, the amount spent would be £2½ million. Losses would be over £1,000,000. Is there any reason to expect that this money will, in fact, be repaid?
On the face of it, the section makes all kinds of provisions that the Minister for Finance will make the money repayable and lay down the conditions. Section 24 places an obligation upon the Authority so to conduct its affairs that the money will be repaid. Is it possible for a service of this kind to maintain itself as a national service and at the same time, be a commercial service, that is, a service which will be self-supporting? On the face of it, it does not appear to be so.
It is quite clear that whether the money is repaid or not, once we embark upon this service, having spent £2 million, once people have paid licence fees and bought sets, it will not be possible for these reasons and, indeed, for other reasons, to stop. I should like to ask the Minister what grounds there are for expecting that this money will, in fact, come back into the Exchequer.
Senator Hayes wishes to know if calculations were made in regard to the return of the capital about to be invested in the television service. The Television Commission has indicated that the service should break even in about three years and, furthermore, the private groups that were seeking this concession were convinced that television in this country could be made to pay. It is the considered opinion of the officials of my Department that television will break even in about three years' time and that the service can be made to pay its way.
I do not think there is anything useful that I can add in answer to the question put to me by Senator Hayes. The section itself in so far as the creation of the capital is concerned, is self-explanatory and the Senator does not need any information on that. He knows we are providing for an advance of £1½ million from the Central Fund and that that is the amount required to finance the television service consisting of a studio centre and five transmitters. The balance of £500,000 may be used for other capital purposes by the Authority, with the approval of the Minister and the Minister for Finance.
I quite understand the section. I suggest it conveys a false impression. It is quite clear that the Exchequer will pay £2 million but that the Authority will ever be able to repay it is quite nebulous and I suppose quite incapable of proof. For example, the Minister says the Commission suggest they would break even but the Commission were considering the adoption of one of the proposals from private enterprise. The fact that private enterprise thought they could make the thing pay is not the same thing as a State body making it pay, with all the restrictions which are naturally on a State body in a variety of ways. Apparently, we are embarking upon this matter. We are to pay money for it. We have no reason to expect, I think, that the money will be repaid.
Following up the point made by Senator Hayes, it seems at last to be bringing out the inescapable fact that apart from paying for itself, it will involve expenditure in the future. In regard to the £2 million, my hope is that that will be all the State will lose. I see no hope for its return. The Minister says the estimates were given by his Department but I find it hard to see how the Department of Posts and Telegraphs reduces its estimates to say that programmes can be provided for £350,000 when the first document submitted to the Television Commission is quoted on page 66—Minority Report 4—as saying:
The Post Office estimate of the programme and administration cost for a 30-hour week is £936,000 per annum of which only about four per cent. is for administration.
That was for a 30-hour week and we have been talking in terms of a 50-hour-week and yet, by some miracle or other, we can operate a 50-hour week at a cost of £350,000, while our first estimate for a 30-hour week was almost £1,000,000. Therefore, we find it very hard to place any reliability on the figures. I do not know how we can see ourselves putting on a programme at what would be one-eighth of the cost of running B.B.C. programmes. We are heading into the unknown and into very great financial commitments for the State in future.
I spoke about one aspect of this matter on Second Reading. In the first part of Section 23, it states that the Minister "may make advances to the Authority for capital purposes (including working capital purposes)." If that phrase "including working capital purposes" were not in the paragraph, it would have a certain meaning but, when you put in "working capital purposes", you, in effect, say there will be a big loss in the early stages of the service but things will be better when the station gets going. That phrase certainly puts the tin hat on this kind of legislation and it has not been unusual in recent legislation.
I want to deal more specifically with Section 24 later on, but the fact is that a cost of £1,000 an hour, as the Minority Report shows, means an annual cost of £1,500,000. That would be a modest enough sum but the whole of this Bill, and all surrounding circumstances, suggest a total of something in the region of £700,000—half from the listeners and half from advertising—and the £700,000 revenue is split very nicely into two even parts —half for programmes and half for administration and other costs. It would be better if we were honest with ourselves about matters of this sort. Certain State companies are doing what I regard as important research work and claiming that it is paying for itself—bodies like Bord na Móna and the Sugar Company, in Gowla Bog, and I could use very strong language about that kind of behaviour.
Every big corporation in Britain, America, and all over the world has to put a great deal of money into research. I do not see why we are not honest with ourselves and say we shall try to run a second-grade service and we think it will cost so much; that it will involve a subsidy of so much or, if it is true the service will be run for any sum in the region of £700,000, that we shall end up with a third-rate or fourth-rate service. This is an aspect of a subject I hinted at more than once in this House, the Managerial State, in which one is told only as much as is good for one when legislation is being passed, lest one might lose a night's sleep, not that many of our citizens are likely to lose a night's sleep by being told that this service is likely to cost £500,000 a year by way of subsidy.
It really goes to my heart to see a phrase like that in subsection (4) which states: "the principal of an interest on all securities issued under this section shall be charged on and payable out of the Central Fund or the growing produce thereof." Linked with that you have under subsection (2) "advances under this section... shall be made on such terms and conditions as to repayment as the Minister for Finance thinks proper." That is the same system as was used in setting up the E.S.B., that the State can borrow money at five per cent. and get 5½ per cent. from the Television Authority and have it repaid in a certain time. That was the system that was successfully established in relation to the E.S.B. which, luckily for the country, is a very large institution. I suppose it could be called a white blackbird amongst all State companies. Really, when one adds it up, can anybody give me a single instance of any of them that has paid back its capital within a reasonable time?
We have had Bórd na Móna paying back capital. I am not reflecting on Bórd na Móna but it is a fact that large sums of money were put into it and written off. We should be straight with ourselves in our legislation. This is being made the law of the land and, since it is being made so, we have the evidence of what we know the cost is in Britain, and all of us who look at television have evidence of the amount of canned stuff we get from the B.B.C. like "Wells Fargo" and other programmes like that. I always turn them off, if I am allowed, and if I am not allowed, I go out of the room. We are up against that kind of problem and we really ought not put this kind of section into the Bill.
Instead of "repayable advances", it would be far better if it were headed "Capital to be made available by the State, presumably to be lost" and if we got a few shillings back, we could throw our "sweaty nightcaps" in the air and we would all feel great. I am not against giving £2,000,000 to the Television Authority—on the contrary —but I think we should be honest with ourselves and we ought to say there is no hope at all of getting this money back.
In the inevitable stocktaking that will take place in a year or two, I think it is reasonable to assume that income from sound services will show a reduction. Advertising will move into the new medium and, if that happens, it will wipe out the Minister's hope that he does not want the sound services to suffer. I think the sound services will tend to become the disinherited child in this new set-up and I could not be emphatic enough in asking the Minister to ensure that the sound services will be as good as they are at present.
I have already given that assurance to the House and I shall convey the request of Senator Barry in connection with sound broadcasting to the Authority. It is very difficult to arrive at hard and fast conclusions on estimates that are based—some of them—on a supposition and in arriving at a conclusion in regard to the income and expenditure of the Authority, the estimates may not prove to be absolutely correct. You have to go as near as you can. Anyway, the estimate—its meaning—is conveyed in the word "estimate", but nevertheless, be that as it may, that is the conclusion arrived at by the Television Commission in regard to television operations at the end of three years. That was in general application and not in application to private groups or anything else. It had a general application to the operation of the television service based on certain estimates. They also said that they were just estimates and that it was not possible to arrive at hard and fast conclusions in regard to the soundness or otherwise of the estimates provided. There were other factors that would lead to the belief that this service could pay after three years or so and that the private groups who offered to operate the service could give the licence fees to the Exchequer. They were prepared to operate the service without the licence fees and were still satisfied that they could make the business pay. I believe that this Authority will not lose money, as indicated by Senators who have expressed their opinions in that way. The same was said, I think, about sound broadcasting when that service was being established.
It lost a lot of money for a long time.
It did, but we as a State should have such a service, and the fact is that after those years, it is now in a position to balance its books. It is a good thing to have it, and we can arrive at the same conclusion in regard to the television service after a number of years. It is better that the State, through a public authority, should operate the television service than that it should be given out to a concessionaire.
Is it suggested in this discussion that there is a possibility of the sound broadcasting service being less effective in the future? I want to say that I hope that under this Authority both sound and sight broadcasting will improve. I should emphasise that through the greater part of the country, it is the ordinary sound radio service that will be most appreciated and that the people will have an opportunity of receiving at all. I was in Achill and I could not hear the broadcast of a match from Croke Park, and I was in Parknasilla and I could not hear a broadcast from Cork. It is amazing. Senator Hayes laughs at that.
There is an immense field for improvement in the sound broadcasting service, and I appeal to the Minister to see that greater facilities for sound broadcasting are provided under the Authority.
What I wish is that this service pays. As I said on the previous section, there is too much of the idea of passing this over to the State. We pass so many overheads to the State that we find ourselves, in 1960, in a non-competitive condition with regard to external trade. Looking at the problem this year—and it is this year that we propose to hand over these powers to the Minister—we and the Minister ought to feel that this will not be another overhead on the production entities of this country in any way. We have tended to have that in Ireland. Probably it is an inheritance from the fact that we were part of a great empire and there was always a big estate to carry it. In the future, our chief effort must be to keep down costs as low as we can and make ourselves a low-cost economy in every respect. This should in no way be any burden, contingent or otherwise, on the Exchequer, for the Exchequer is overloaded with burdens. I am glad to hear the Minister's assurance that in no circumstance will it be allowed to become a burden on the Exchequer.
There are a few things which have been puzzling me. How does the Minister reconcile the first estimate of the Post Office given on page 66 that this would cost £936,000 per annum for 30 hours a week, with the fact that now apparent-by the Minister accepts the Post Office estimate that it can be done for £350,000? Secondly, the Minister holds that Radio Eireann has now broken even. It has broken even under the existing system where it is entitled to certain free services from the State. I have listed the various items tonight, and due to the transfer of these items and the loss of advertising revenue and the repayment of the half a million pounds it is getting for development, it will be faced with an additional expenditure of £250,000 per annum, of which perhaps £50,000 might be recouped from the increased licence fees.
Any way one looks at it, Radio Éireann has to improve to the extent of at least £150,000 per annum before it breaks even. That can be achieved only by cutting expenditure, which at present is £650,000 per annum. In other words, we are expecting Radio Éireann to be able to cut its expenditure by 25 per cent. if it is to comply with the terms of this Bill and not be a burden either on the State or on the new television service. I cannot see how that can be reconciled.
The estimate contained in paragraph 32 of the Report of the Television Commission, the one to which Senator Quinlan refers, was based on a very large amount of Irish programme being provided for the service. I have indicated already that the television service will, in its early days, anyway, operate on a large amount of imported programme. We shall have to provide gradually the home-produced programme over the ensuing years and build up a service for ourselves at home.
I do not think that we should try to reach the same standard in relation to sets, presentation of programmes, the props and so on and added expenses which the B.B.C. incurs in putting out its programmes. We can produce a really good Irish Programme here in Ireland setting out the character of our people and providing Irish entertainment, and providing for the presentation of Irish drama and plays, and generally dealing with a programme with a high cultural value here, at a much lower rate than the British could, and it would be a much better programme from our point of view and in all probability, might be much more appreciated by many people abroad, including our own people abroad. We can deal in that business, and the Authority will have some other sources of income besides the actual income from licence fees and from advertising. It can do a certain amount of business for itself as well, and, we hope, will have some added income from these sources also.
I personally believe that we can produce a good programme at something less than the £1,000 an hour mentioned, or anything higher. The B.B.C. operated at first for as low as £850 an hour. They are at a much higher figure now. I am firmly convinced that we will find a position, after a short number of years, in which the financial affairs of this body will be balanced. That is my own view.
I think the Minister put his finger very rightly on the difference. The difference is in the amount of home-produced programmes it contains but if the Post Office estimate is based on 30 hours a week, surely the amount of home-produced programmes in it being more than eight or ten hours, how can you reduce eight or ten hours any further? To sum up, I would prefer that we had an irreducible minimum of home-produced programme and if we cannot balance our books at that, I would far prefer to face a State subsidy rather than reduce the content of the home-produced programme further.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 24
Question proposed: "That Section 24 stand part of the Bill".
Does paragraph (b)—"to make suitable provision with respect to capital expenditure"—mean making suitable provision for the capital furnished to it or does it refer to capital expenditure after they have been formed? I take it, seeing the whole content of the section, that this arrangement is repayment. We were once told about cheap and efficient transport under a Bill which passed through the Dáil and the Seanad and that did not work out. We were told about industrial alcohol and how it was going to supply us at a cheap rate and that did not work out, either, and I am very much afraid that this will not work out. This is very admirable, but there is no means of insisting that it will be carried out. It is not much more than a pious aspiration, a pious aspiration with which we shall all agree, but there is no method of enforcing it or providing that we are not now embarking on a system of expenditure which will continue for a great number of years before this body becomes self-supporting, if it ever does become self-supporting.
The Authority will be expected—that is what the section is there for—as soon as possible to put itself in the position of repaying the capital borrowed—Senator Hayes is correct in his interpretation of the section—and eventually, if possible, of creating reserves to meet capital expenditure. We have already dealt with the estimate of time it will take for that to happen and there is hardly any necessity to repeat that we expect to see the results of the working of this Authority in a more favourable way in three or four years' time.
This section is an improvement on Section 15 of the Transport Act, 1950, the second section of which went something as follows—"It shall be the general duty of the Board so to conduct its undertaking that taking one year with another, the revenues from current income shall be not less than sufficient to meet the charges properly chargeable to revenue." On an average, of course, since then on the charges properly chargeable to revenue, C.I.E. has lost £1,000,000 a year. That is quite apart altogether from giving no interest on capital and making at times only comparatively small provision for depreciation and we should not forget that the boat was well pushed out for C.I.E. to the tune of about £4½ million when it was set up in 1950, when the undertaking was nationalised.
Here at least we do not have the "taking one year with another," but we have the phrase "at least sufficient"—instead of "not less than sufficient"—"to meet all sums properly chargeable to current account and to make suitable provision with respect to capital expenditure", which I take it means, in essence, to make suitable provision for the amortisation of capital expenditure.
The fact is, and there is no use pretending otherwise, that of all the so-called successful undertakings, only a very few have been able to make sufficient provision to amortise their capital or to pay even a minimum rate of interest on the moneys invested in them. I suppose if you excepted the E.S.B. and the Sugar Company— although it is not in quite the same position as these boards—and you added in some of the smaller ones, perhaps the Dairy Disposal Board, which for quite a long period had losses but has paid its way in the past 20 years, you would find that not one of them paid its way.
Yesterday we saw a ceremony in this city at which one of the Ministers attended. He said this is a great undertaking, paying its way and that it had paid so much income tax to the State. In fact, we were told the income tax came from insurance business and not from freights at all. It no longer pays very much income tax to the State. To my mind, this kind of pious aspiration started in part with the pious aspirations in the Constitution. I have nothing against having pious aspirations in the Constitution. If there are to be pious aspirations in legislation, that is where they should be, in general rules laid down for the community. Here we have a general duty of the Authority with respect to its revenue. What is the sanction in relation to this general duty? After all, a general duty is an overriding duty, and there should be some sanction, if it fails in, its general duty. Of course, there is no such sanction, because, although the Minister said that he hoped the Authority will break even in two years, if I might use a recurrent phrase without intending to be in any way vulgar, "we heard it before, Joe." We have genuinely heard it before many times. As I say, it would be better if we would face up to this kind of proposition and genuinely decided what kind of service we want, what we wanted to plan for and then say on the best estimate we can make how much it will cost.
I realise that the Minister has a perfectly fair answer when he says that we got certain estimates from private enterprise firms. We should not forget that some of them were closely connected with firms with a large television expenditure and I take it they would be able to divert large masses of advertising which certainly would not be available to this new Authority here. That was a fair decision that the Government took. Nobody cavils at it and nobody questions it. What I feel badly about is that we have a section put into the Bill which gives an impression that there is a duty on the Authority. There is no duty on the Authority really to do this because in fact it cannot do it and there is no sanction if it fails to do it.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 25.
I move amendment No. 26:—
In subsection (2), line 28, to delete "Minister, with the consent" and substitute "Authority with the approval".
Section 25, in any form, is, of course, a highly desirable section but I do not understand why this body which the Minister says is an independent body which is to have, he says, considerable powers under subsection (2) should not be allowed itself to appoint an auditor. Subsection (2) provides that a duly qualified auditor can be appointed by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance. I am moving the amendment to allow the Authority to appoint the auditor, subject to the approval of the Minister for Finance, or with the consent of the Minister for Finance—I am not particular about the wording—but that seems to me to be sensible and reasonable.
I can understand that the Minister for Finance should have the controlling authority, just as he has in the case of income tax. You cannot employ anyone you like, or any company, or any private individual, or anyone you please, to present your accounts to the Revenue authorities. The Revenue people insist on a person whom they agree to. They agree to a great class of people and I do not see why this Authority if it is responsible for a very considerable amount of money and responsible for programmes, should not have the power itself to appoint a qualified auditor who is, presumably, a qualified chartered accountant in a firm of qualified chartered accountants. I think that the only safeguard necessary is that the Minister for Finance should approve the choice of the Authority. I think that is reasonable, and I do not see, for the life of me, why the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs should be the Authority, with the consent of the Minister for Finance.
It would surely be sufficient for the Authority to make the appointment with the approval of the Minister for Finance. I agree that should be done, because the Minister for Finance is in charge of that kind of thing, and should ensure that they are proper and reputable persons whose accounts can be relied upon. That is all necessary from the point of view of the State, or of Parliament, or of the people and I therefore, move accordingly.
The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is responsible to the licensees, and to the taxpayers in general, and it is therefore considered that the auditor should be appointed with the consent of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and for that very reason, and for no other reason—that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has responsibility with regard to licence holders and the taxpayer.
The auditor is not appointed with the consent of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. It is by the Minister.
I should have said: "by the Minister."
Surely from what the Minister has just said it would be sufficient to have the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs? I do not mind whether you put in the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs or the Minister for Finance, but it seems to me that the Authority itself should have power to appoint and for some Minister representing the Government to have power to say: "We will not take that auditor." I do not understand what relationship the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has to the taxpayer which makes it incumbent upon him to appoint the auditor. There are well-known qualifications for auditors, and there are a great many firms of reputable auditors whose names occur to everybody. Anybody at all in business circles, or in other circles, can name a half-dozen, and there are a great many others, so I do not see any reason why the Authority which is cribbed, cabined and confined in a great variety of ways, should be humiliated, so to speak, by having an auditor thrust upon it.
It should be able to appoint an auditor itself, whose appointment would be subject to the approval of the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. I put down the Minister for Finance merely because he is in this subsection and, might I say, I am not at all convinced, or even faintly convinced on the Minister's point that he has a responsibility to the taxpayers? His responsibility to the taxpayers, and our responsibility to the taxpayers, are that the accounts should be properly audited, and that can be ensured if the names are well known, and if the auditor appointed by the Authority has to be approved by the Minister for Finance. Surely then he would be a person of repute, and surely there would be a sufficient guarantee to the taxpayers, to the Minister, and to the members of the Oireachtas, that the accounts were properly audited? I see no reason in the world for inserting the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs here.
I support Senator Hayes on this amendment. It is highly desirable that a reputable firm of commercial auditors should be appointed. Their whole training and experience would suggest that they have a widespread knowledge to assist in the direction and formulation of matters appertaining to policy. I know that a local industry with which I am connected—it is a subsidiary industry owned by a public body—has commercial auditors, and we got them because we were advised by consultants we brought in that it would be better to have commercial auditors because they would be a help to us. Why should the invaluable commercial experience of reputable firms of commercial auditors be denied by the Minister to an Authority like this?
There are several State-sponsored companies—and some of the most successful ones—in which firms of commercial auditors are employed, and the Minister ought even to go so far as to ascertain from these State-sponsored companies why they employ commercial auditors and find out are they dissatisfied with them or have they an advantage. It is my experience in the small industry which, as I say, is the property of a local authority, that we find it an advantage to have commercial auditors. I find in business myself that commercial auditors are invaluable in respect of their experience and the advice they can give from that day-to-day experience of affairs.
I doubt if training in the Civil Service is the type of training which will help this company to be venturesome, and do the things that might need a little imagination, and bring the experience that is required in the field of industry and commerce. I say seriously to the Minister that he should consider this amendment and should allow, if the Authority see fit, the appointment of commercial auditors. If he does not see fit to do that, he should ask his colleagues in the Cabinet to say why they do not insist on commercial auditors being withdrawn from many of the well-run State-sponsored companies in which they have the benefit of their experience.
I do not think Senator Burke has made his point very clear.
I made it abundantly clear.
I do not think he has anything to worry about with regard to the auditors who will be appointed to examine the accounts of the company. The section clearly states that "after the end of that year ... shall be the subject of a report by duly qualified auditors." Commercial auditors are duly qualified auditors or whatever type of auditors Senator Burke has in mind. No Minister, no authority and no self-respecting body will appoint auditors who are not fully qualified to tackle the job which they will have to tackle. In this case, there is no restriction on the type of auditor who will be appointed. One would gather from Senator Burke that he thinks they will be Civil Service auditors with no experience of business. I do not know of any auditors who would fit the description which Senator Burke has in mind, but, certainly, there is no attempt by the Minister to deny the Authority the proper audit of its books by the most highly qualified auditors who can be found.
I should be glad if the Minister tells us so.
I also support Senator Hayes in this amendment. Surely, if we have a competent Authority, they can be relied upon to appoint an auditor, with, as he says, the consent of the Minister for Finance. I think it is altogether wrong that a member of the Authority should be humiliated by having the auditor appointed by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.
This day week when certain amendments and arguments were made on this side of the House, the Minister stated that he did not want to hamstring the Authority in any way, that he wanted to give them full freedom. His reply to every argument we put up was that he did not want to interfere with them in any way. The Minister is not being consistent today. He is hamstringing them and does seem to be interfering in their day-to-day work. The Minister stated on February 3rd as reported in Vol. 52, No. 3 of the Seanad debates: "The Authority will, I believe, conduct its business in a manner worthy of its members." Surely if the Authority conducts its business in a manner worthy of its members, it should be able to appoint an auditor and should be allowed to appoint an auditor. Senator Ó Maoláin stated on the same day that Fine Gael Senators seemed to have no faith in humanity. It is the Minister and Fianna Fáil Senators who seem to have no faith in the Authority they themselves are setting up.
May I ask the Minister whether he could not consider before the next Stage whether he really needs this power to appoint an auditor? Would it not be better to do what he said himself, unwittingly perhaps, a few moments ago, and have the auditor appointed by the Board with the consent of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs or the Minister for Finance? That would add to the power of the Board and give some appearance of accuracy to the Minister's statement that he wants to have an independent Authority.
The appointment of an auditor and the examination of the company's accounts by a qualified auditor is not interference with the Authority. An auditor has nothing to do with day-to-day practice. In commercial practice, auditors are appointed by the shareholders——
——at the annual general meeting, not by the board of directors.
When are they not nominated by the board of directors?
The auditors are appointed by the shareohlders—
On the nomination of the board of directors.
There is an obligation to the people who pay licence fees. The Authority will be receiving public moneys in the form of a non-repayable grant, £500,000 which they are getting for five years, and they will be getting loans. In accordance with the general practice and other State practice, the auditor should be appointed by the Minister who has responsibility in this regard. The Minister is acting on behalf of those people and of those interests when he is taking authority here to appoint the auditor.
I know that what the Minister says on the point of an auditor being appointed by the shareholders is technically correct, but what happens in practice is that he is selected by the board of directors and then submitted to the shareholders. Generally, he is proposed by shareholders who are not directors but directors are shareholders, too, and they have a vote. I know of no case where auditors were appointed in face of the directors because they have a fairly hefty say when it comes to a vote, but the legend is there that the shareholders are protected by proposing a man each year at the annual meeting. I think the Minister should consider what Senator Hayes has said and allow the Authority initiative in this matter. I am sure that the Authority will be responsible enough to suggest a man or a firm that is entirely reputable and experienced and will, for these two reasons, have the entire support and sanction of the Minister.
I do not think the Minister can shed his responsibility in this matter but I shall look into it.
If I suggested this to the House Senator Hayes would be the first to say: "That is the usual phraseology; that is the way the draftsman put it in; the Minister must always have his say; this is proposed with the consent of the Minister for Finance," but I disagree strongly with Senator Hayes who is suggesting by-passing the Minister. If he wants it done properly, he should say: "The auditor should be appointed by the Board with the approval of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and the sanction of the Minister for Finance" and carry it on another step. I do not know why he is worried about this at all. This thing follows the usual routine and it is ridiculous for Senator Hayes to suggest by-passing the Minister who is the responsible Minister under the Bill. To appoint an auditor "with the consent of the Minister for Finance" is by-passing the Minister responsible.
The O'Donovans are rather sticky in this House and rather sticklers for procedure, both of them, one and the other.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 25 agreed to.
SECTION 26.
Question proposed: "That Section 26 stand part of the Bill."
I wish to refer to subsection (2):
Whenever the Minister so directs the annual report shall also include information on such particular aspects of the Authority's proceedings under this Act as the Minister may specify.
I want the Minister to specify that the report should include a summary of any listener research carried out during the year. The Minister on Report Stage might consider doing something about that.
I shall consider that all right but it might not be advisable to have it in every year. You want to know whether it was done, negative or positive, or what was done, or both?
I want a regular report on consumer reaction.
I should like to direct the attention of the Minister and the House to what is in many ways the most valuable paragraph in the report of the Television Commission, Paragraph 85, dealing with the annual report which is covered in this section.
It says: "The future development and advance of television cannot easily be forecast." I think we all agree on that.
It goes on:
For this reason it is suggested that it would be advantageous to have a basic re-examination of the broadcasting system and its governing legislation after a fixed interval.
It makes a suggestion:
To this end it is suggested that the statute dealing with television should provide a specific date when it will expire unless extended by the Oireachtas.
That provision has not been taken. I wonder is there any way the Minister could implement the very valuable recommendation here?
That is provided for under Section 5. In five years, there will be a reappraisal of the situation.
This section has to do with an annual report.
There does not seem to be any provision in it to meet this, which seems to be a highly desirable provision, especially when we are venturing so much into the unknown.
Section 25 deals with the accounts and audits.
We are dealing with Section 26.
I want to have the two amalgamated.
Section 25 deals with the audit and Section 26, which we are discussing now, deals with an annual report. Does that mean that there will be two separate reports? Could the two not be incorporated and thereby save money? We ought to have one comprehensive report.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 27.
Amendment No. 27 has been ruled out of order.
Amendment No. 27 not moved.
Sections 27 and 28 agreed to.
SECTION 29.
Question proposed: "That Section 29 stand part of the Bill."
I hope they will have plenty to invest.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 30.
Question proposed: "That Section 30 stand part of the Bill."
I should like to ask, for the purpose of clarification, what is the position in connection with the work already done about the acquisition, say, of Kippure Mountain? Has the Board of Works done the work up to the present? Does the Authority take over the work that has been done already? What is the position in connection with the money which has already been expended in anticipation of the Bill?
We are handing over whatever property is appropriate to hand over to the Authority from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs under the Schedule to this Bill. Section 32 covers it.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 31.
I move amendment No. 28:
To delete subsection (1).
Subsection (1) of Section 31 reads:
The Minister may direct the Authority in writing to refrain from broadcasting any particular matter or matter of any particular class, and the Authority shall comply with the direction.
This subsection seems to me to be unnecessary and potentially dangerous. It gives the Minister a complete veto over every item and every class of item and gives him the power to exercise that veto completely and without appeal over the Authority.
I have been encouraged by the Minister's whole approach right from his opening speech to hope that he may be prepared on this matter to support the view that what we must do is to trust the Authority. All along the Minister has taken the view, and wisely so, that there is no good setting up an Authority and then tying its hands by absurd regulations or restrictions. This is a major restriction in which the Authority would not be free from Ministerial interference.
I think the Minister realises that when we talk about Ministerial interference, we mean not one particular Minister but the capacity of any Minister to intervene. I do not think we should be put off with any suggestion that the Minister really would not use this power because we think Parliament ought not give power which is excessive to anybody, simply on the grounds that he would not use it. If he would not use it, he should not have it. It seems to me that the Minister in this subsection is asking for too much.
Furthermore, I think, perhaps, by the subsection, he might well be bringing a lot of trouble on his own head. If it gets about that the way to stop a particular item or class of items from being referred to in a broadcast is to get at the Minister, the Minister will be astonished at the number of people who will be trying to get at him. That might well in most cases be pure waste of time. That waste of time would be waste. If, on the other hand, it is the Authority who decide and if the Minister is free from responsibility, I think the general running of the service would be improved.
The second subsection gives the Minister authority to ask for the insertion of certain items. Arising out of that, it would be possible in Parliament to ask the Minister why certain things had not, in fact, been adverted to but to give a complete veto to the Minister on any particular matter or matter of any particular class seems to me both unnecessary and ridiculous and for that reason I move the deletion, not of the section, but of the first subsection of Section 31.
Subsection (1) of Section 31 may appear to some people to be a harsh subsection, something not in keeping with the general pattern of this Bill, but when you consider this question deeply and relate the subsection to the fact that this broadcasting service has a monopoly and is a State service operated by a public Authority, the Minister in this section is not operating as a censor. Neither is he seeking this power to suppress the free expression of opinion or to suppress information in any way, but the Minister and the Government must take into consideration the public interest. The public interest is involved in this matter.
I feel that subsection (1) is needed. I said in my opening speech on the Second Reading of the Bill that I hoped it would never have to be used, but a situation could develop here, as it can develop in any country, that when an Authority broadcasts a certain class of programme or a certain item, they may not be in a position to have the information that would be at the disposal of the Government in regard to the implications that the broadcast would have in respect of our relations with other countries or a crisis at home. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the Minister, acting for the public in the public interest, to have this authority. Even if this section were not in the Bill at all, some responsibility would devolve upon the Minister and the Government in regard to programmes. The Government cannot shed some responsibility for the policy the Authority will follow.
We have tried, as far as we possibly could, to leave the actual programming of the service to the Authority, but we feel this power is needed so as to enable the Minister to act as I have indicated. This power is retained in other countries in similar circumstances in regard to broadcasting. It is retained in Britain, in the B.B.C. and in I.T.V. It is an overriding power which the Minister should have, to be used in circumstances as I have indicated, and not as a censorship or as a method of suppressing general information or a free expression of opinion.
May I direct the attention of Senators to amendment No. 29, also standing in the name of Senator Quinlan? It is clear that these two amendments will have to be taken together. A separate decision on each can, of course, be obtained but properly they should be taken together if the House agrees.
I feel the Minister has made a bad case for this section. While I do not go the whole way with Senator Sheehy Skeffington, I feel the Minister should have been competent enough to make a better case for it. In his opening words, he said that this section was not in keeping with the general pattern of the Bill, thereby implying that the whole pattern of the Bill was no control by the Government.
I said it might not appear to be in keeping with the pattern.
The entire general pattern of the Bill can be summed up as control by the Government and by the Minister. There is no use in wearying the House about the method of appointment of the officers of the Authority. This is a monopoly State service but even though the Minister said he is not operating as a censor, I hold that under this section he has the right, if he wants to, to act as a dictator, not only by issuing these directives but by the mere fact that he has the power to issue them. One can well imagine the power of a Minister who can influence the officers of this Authority. They know quite well that if they go past a certain limit, he can crack the whip and order them to refrain or insist upon the broadcasting of a particular item.
Some power is necessary, as the Minister pointed out in the only relevant case he made concerning the relationship of this country with another or, for instance, we might have Sinn Féin trouble or a position such as we are in now when we are negotiating a trade agreement with Great Britain, when the reporting of these occurrences in a certain way might not be in the public interest and some power is required, but at the same time, it is a very limited power which is given in the British Act. I shall not weary the House by quoting the wording in the British Act bestowing this power, and I shall deal with that more fully on a later amendment, but it is not anything like as complete a power as the Minister seeks here, which power is entirely in keeping with the whole Bill.
This is a dictatorship Bill. There is no question that the Minister is taking the entire power and I sincerely believe that in taking it, there is also the intention to use it. I sincerely believe that it is the intention to influence television in this country from the Government's side and the snag about the whole thing is that if they want to play politics as a Party, then the thing follows a clear-cut pattern. If they want to play in that way, it is the same as the Hospitals Commission or the Agricultural Credit Corporation in relation to the appointment of members. When one side is in, they appoint their nominees and when the other side takes office, they select their own people. That is the political ideology which prevails of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and in this instance, we should do the right thing and give the necessary freedom to the Television Authority to prevent that happening. If you take four years and use your power for influence, we have got to take the next four years and, quite frankly, I believe we shall do the same. I urge that this should not happen now and while I say that, I do not quite go the whole way with Senator Sheehy Skeffington.
May I point out to Senator Donegan that he is quoting the Old Testament, not the New Testament, and I thought the dispensation under which most of us operated was the New Testament?
May I point out to Senator Stanford that I do not give a hoot what Testament I am quoting from?
Of course, Senator Donegan does not give a hoot what Testament he is quoting from. He never did and it is absolutely useless to attempt to argue with him.
I am delighted with that.
I was trying to pin him down on that matter to which he has again referred. He believes it is the intention to use this to slant programmes in a certain direction.
The Senator is very wrong.
On the last occasion, I tried to pin the Senator down as to what could be done and how it was done in Radio Éireann and he did not answer. Therefore, I take it there is very little use in replying to his speech to-night because he will adopt the same tactics and so I shall turn to Senator Sheehy Skeffington who says the powers taken under this section are potentially dangerous. I think the powers taken under this section are not alone necessary but that they constitute a good insurance policy for this country. Senator Sheehy Skeffington, and Senators like him who follow the trend of world events and who keep abreast of what is happening in other countries, must be well aware of—shall we say?—the disaster which almost overtook a country some few years ago because of the broadcasting by short wave of insulting references to another country. It is doubtless a very important and essential safeguard from the point of view of our external relations alone, and in view of the rapidly changing position in the world, it is essential that there should be some method by which statements likely or liable to do us damage in our international relations, may be prevented from being aired or televised over our national networks.
As I said, it is a good insurance policy for the country, and I cannot see how Senator Sheehy Skeffington can make it out to be potentially dangerous. We are aware that from time to time, even with the best precautions in the world and with the best attention to news broadcasts by the supervisory staffs of various radio stations, sound broadcasts have caused almost international crises. How much more dangerous could it be with a television service in operation for something of this nature to happen, which could do very much to damage our relations with other countries or with another country. I see no reason in the world why anybody should object to this precautionary provision, which is a good insurance policy for the country.
I find myself very much in agreement with Senator Donegan, in that right through this Bill we come on the most general terms and then when the Minister is questioned, we find that he has exceedingly narrow views in his mind as to how he will exercise the power in those sections. This power, he says, is one which will largely be used only in connection with our relations with foreign countries.
We had the example in Section 16 of a proviso about the preparing and publication of magazines and also the compilation and sale of recorded material, that they had to be subject to the consent of the Minister. The Minister had a very narrow restriction in mind on these matters, that he was going to be concerned only with their impact on private enterprise. I suggest that when the Bill leaves this and the other House, all that remains as an official record is what is contained in the Bill, and nothing we say, or any restriction the Minister places on himself, has the slightest validity in the law courts.
While I would not for one moment go with Senator Donegan when he suggests that the Minister has any ulterior motive, or that the Government are preparing to use this in a particular way, the fact is that the power is here, and any Government in the future could do almost anything under this section. If the Minister has such a clear-cut definition in mind, and such clear limitations, why not insert these into the Bill? It would be quite easy to have put in that the Minister may do this where it affects our relations with another country. If he wants wider power for some other clauses and items, why not put them in?
I suggest that writing in general clauses and putting in restrictions here is merely playing with the matter. The restriction I suggest in the amendment is that this should at least be done on the recommendation of the appropriate advisory committee, but there I had in mind a wider class of problem than the Minister appears to have. The best thing that could be done is for the Minister to agree to have another look at this subsection before Report Stage. I do not think the amendment meets the case put up by the Minister, but if he would insert suitable restrictions to limit this to what he has in mind, we might all feel happier about it.
Might I make one point on the subsection? I take it that the Minister realises this already. Subsection (1) of Section 31 gives the Minister power to direct the Authority to refrain from broadcasting a particular matter. Since he takes that power, if it remains in the Bill when it becomes an Act, then the Minister will be subject to parliamentary question as to why he did not stop a certain kind of programme or allowed a certain programme to be continued, so that from the point of view of people who desire more parliamentary authority over the programmes of the new broadcasting Authority, then subsection (1) of Section 31 is desirable. Certainly, it leaves the Minister wide open to question.
With regard to Senator Quinlan's point as to whether you can insert in a subsection any restrictive clause, I should have grave doubts. The trouble about the cases which Senator Ó Maoláin has mentioned is that the damage is done before you can stop it. The position, I am afraid, is that the Minister must either have the power or not have it, because if you set down all the cases in which he could do it, he could not do it in any other cases. That would be completely restrictive.
What strikes me most about the subsection is that it brings into Parliament the acts of the Minister in not objecting to certain things that were broadcast; that is to say, any person who does not like certain things to be on the screen or broadcast by sound may raise the matter in the House and the Minister cannot throw the responsibility back on to the broadcasting Authority, because he can be told that under this subsection, he could have prevented its repetition.
There is a restriction written in in subsection (2) where the Minister is given power to direct the Authority to allocate broadcasting time for announcements by or in connection with the functions of any Minister of State. I cannot see why the restriction which I have suggested would not be on a par with that restriction.
The Minister and the Government are retaining too much control in this section. If we are setting up a board of competent men, they should be able to conduct their business in a manner worthy of the Minister and of the country, and I would have more faith in the judgment of a board than in the judgment of a narrow-minded politically-biassed Minister. I do not want to claim that the Minister is a narrow-minded or politically-biassed Minister, but you could have a narrow-minded and politically-biassed person as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. We have narrow-minded and politically-biassed Ministers who think that their Party has a monopoly of the brains of the country and that everything they do is right and in the national interest.
The Government seem to give the impression that they want to retain control of this medium of propaganda. This political slant in their approach is quite wrong. Senator Ó Maoláin said that it is a good insurance policy for the country. I think it may be a good insurance policy for the Party in power at present. That is why I object to the Minister getting this control. It is potentially dangerous. Senator Ó Maoláin questioned where Radio Éireann has been biassed in the past. We claim that a Minister can be biassed. Some of them have been biassed in the past, and they can be biassed in the future.
Unfortunately, in any battle between the wishes and desires of many members of the Government and their principles, it is their wishes and desires which seem to get the better of their principles. It happened recently in an appointment to the National Stud where you had a member of the National Stud who bred a winner of the Grand National removed and a man put in who knew nothing about racing but was one of the biggest subscribers to the Fianna Fáil Party.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I listened to the Minister's reply and to the various other comments on my amendment and it seems to me that most of us feel that the Minister should not be given a full power. The Minister himself assures us that he does not need the full power and hopes he will never have to use it. He says he does not intend to be a censor and does not intend to interfere with the free expression of ideas and so on. The fact is that the power which the subsection gives him enables him to do so, if he wants to. Senator Quinlan rightly pointed out that a particular Minister's restrictions or promises in this regard are not law; they are not even binding on himself. I do not question the Minister's good faith at all but I think it is quite irrelevant for him to say: "give me this total power because I shall not use it in a totalitarian way".
Senator Hayes made a point that unless this subsection is in, the Minister will not be open to question in the Parliament for things he does not stop. He still will be open to question under subsection (2) for things that he does not insist should be broadcast, but it is true that he cannot be questioned in the Dáil because he did not stop this, that or the other thing. That is where I see, with all respect to Senator Ó Maoláin, a potential danger for the Minister himself if he is to be held responsible in Parliament for every item, every particular matter or every particular class of matter he has failed to stop although he had the power to do so. I think he will find himself in quite an awkward position.
A newspaper is best edited by an editor with full editorial powers. I believe the broadcasting Authority should have full power. If there is somebody over and above the editor who can, even if he does not often, interfere and say: "Do not print this or that", it can be potentially dangerous, even though he may not exercise his power. The very existence of the power may be dangerous. The Minister said that in certain cases there might be knowledge in the possession of the Government which would not be in the possession of the Authority and the Authority might in good faith broadcast something that might be harmful. I suggest that can be covered by the Government making representations to the Authority. I cannot believe that if representations were made to the Authority by the Minister that certain topics had better not be adverted to at the moment, the Authority would say: "We shall do this despite your representations." If it came to a question of national security, it is quite clear that the Minister would have overriding powers. He would be granted rights to interfere not only in broadcasting but with the press and in all censorship. Here the Minister is asking for power which he claims he hopes he will never have to use and I know he is sincere. For that reason itself, I feel it should not be granted. I feel he will be leaving himself open to all kinds of indirect approaches and pressure if he insists on having that power.
If we might link it with subsection (3), I notice that although the Minister under subsection (1) will have the power to veto any particular point, under subsection (3), it will be possible for him to prevent anybody in the country knowing that he has so vetoed and therefore the question in Parliament might never arise because nobody in Parliament would know that the veto had been exercised. Therefore, linking the two together, I feel that it would be dangerous and that the subsection should be opposed.
In regard to my point about the Parliamentary Question, the people who do not like a programme could ask the Minister why he does not exercise his power under subsection (1) of Section 31. I am not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing, I am only saying that it is a fact.
I did not say that I did not need this power. I am convinced that this subsection should appear in this Bill. In my view, the public interest is of paramount importance in this country or in any country. This is a special Authority set up by the Government by the authority of the people and surely the Government are entitled to some overriding veto in so far as a broadcast is concerned whenever it is known to the Government that such a broadcast would be inimical to the public interest. That is what we are asking for in this subsection and I am prepared, as Minister, on behalf of the Government, to accept whatever responsibility devolves on us in its operation. I believe we should have that authority and I am fortified in my conviction by the experience and practice in other countries. This follows closely the authority which is given under the British Broadcasting Act and the authority which the Postmaster-General has in regard to the Independent Television Authority. Its working in Britain has been frequently reviewed by Royal Commissions and it has never been suggested that the British Postmaster General's power of veto was unreasonable and the British Broadcasting Corporation has never questioned it or asked that it be withdrawn. We need that authority and it should remain in the Bill.
May I ask the Minister a question? Has the Minister this power in connection with Radio Éireann and if not, why not?
At present Radio Éireann is a State service and the Minister is in complete control.
I rise merely to reply to the challenge of the Leader of the House that I did not reply on the constitution of Radio Éireann. I shall not weary the House by repeating what I said but I shall merely refer the House to the debates. No matter how many times the Leader of the House says that I did not reply, he will find in the debates that I did and, I think, cogently and successfully. Briefly, I want to say, as I said at the outset, that while not going the whole way with Senator Sheehy Skeffington——
It seems to me you went further.
In a different direction. We all come to the crossroads. You went one way and I went another.
The Senator should keep on the track.
My track might not be the same as the Senator's. I do find that the arguments in regard to the requests the Minister may make to the Authority are very good arguments and while the Minister holds, as the Senator pointed out, certain powers in times of emergency that are all-embracing he also holds the power of removing any member of the Authority. In fact, that power may be exercised to remove all the members of the Authority, if he likes. The Authority is subservient to him. What I do not like about the subsection is the fact that the Minister can by discussion, by suggestion, by never implementing this power, get what he wants and get, to use the word I used so often on this Bill, the inflection that is required.
This country is not like Britain where they have the Socialist versus the Conservative set-up. We have the situation where we have two Conservative Parties and the slightest inflection one way or another, in the six months before an election, can mean hundreds of thousands of votes. This is a subsection of which I am certainly most afraid.
When a Minister gets up in the Seanad or the Dáil and says that the public interest is of paramount importance, I immediately become suspicious. I may have a suspicious mind, but I do become suspicious. I say this without offence—the Minister and I are old friends and have been for a long time, and he will know that I do not mean to give offence—I have often heard that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. When the Minister brings in the question of public interest, we must think——
P.R. was in the public interest.
I wonder how many times it has been referred to but I still do not go the whole road with Senator Sheehy Skeffington.
Might I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this and, on Report Stage, to bring in a limitation of the provision that will express what he has told us here and the specific powers he asks for in the field of foreign relations?
I do not think the Minister should be called on to do what Senator Quinlan asks. After all, the Government are greater than the statutory corporation which it is proposed to set up under this Bill. At a later date, the Government will have to account for their actions while in office, whereas the statutory corporation which it is proposed to set up here will not have to account for its actions to the people. I should prefer to see the Government being supreme in this matter in the interests of the common good, and I think the vast majority of the taxpayers and the people, in general, would be of the same opinion.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is the Senator pressing the amendment?
In the hope that the Minister will devote careful thought to this matter between now and Report Stage, I should like leave to withdraw the amendment with the intention of putting it down again on Report Stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 29 not moved.
I move amendment No. 30:—
In subsection (2), lines 48 and 49, to delete "by, or in connection with the functions of, any Minister of State" and substitute "in connection with the functions of any Minister of State as such".
This amendment really aims at making subsection (2) of this section read:
The Minister may direct the Authority in writing to allocate broadcasting time for any announcements in connection with the functions of any Minister of State as such and the Authority shall comply with the direction.
I move the amendment because it seems to me that the subsection has been very carefully framed so that the Minister can direct the Authority to broadcast anything at all. It is framed in rather curious English but it is intended to have a very wide meaning: "Any announcements by, or in connection with the functions of, any Minister of State". That would be anything announced by a Minister. I take it the meaning is any announcements by a Minister of any kind whatever, not necessarily announcements by the Minister in connection with his functions as Minister of State, but any announcement whatever. "... or in connection with the functions of, any Minister of State." I think it should be "... any Minister of State as such".
For example, I do not think the Minister for Education, when opening a school, is acting as Minister for Education, as such, or that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when presiding at a dinner, or speaking at a dinner, or opening a factory, is acting as Minister for Industry and Commerce as such. I notice in paragraph 117 of the Report of the Television Commission:—
Provision should be made whereby a Minister of State may, if he considers it necessary or expedient in connection with his functions as such, by notice in writing require the Authority to broadcast any announcement with or without an appropriate television picture at a particular time or times.
It goes on to say that the Authority should be permitted to announce that fact. Unless my memory deceives me, there are also, in the British Act which the Minister has just quoted in favour of subsection (1), the words "Minister, as such." I think it would be a limiting phrase and the subsection, as I redraft it, would give the Minister all the power he needs for the making of official announcements, or for announcements connected with his functions as a Minister of State, as such, and would relieve the Minister of suspicion. I grant, if he likes, that it is only suspicion, but there is the certainty that this subsection could be used for any kind of political broadcast by an unscrupulous Minister. I think the Minister would have all his wants if the subsection were amended on the lines I suggest.
I have gone into this question to see if there is anything amiss, or anything which should be remedied, and I am legally advised that the subsection, as it stands, has that meaning and that "as such" is not necessary at all. Power is taken here to direct the Authority, in writing, "to allocate broadcasting time for any announcements by, or in connection with the functions of, any Minister of State...." I am advised that covers official announcements——
And announcements from the Government Information Bureau which would indicate that they were official announcements. It relates to the Minister in his corporate capacity, not as an individual outside his corporate capacity and to announcements similar to those made regularly by Radio Éireann, official Government announcements. Many will be made, not by the Minister, but by the announcer on behalf of the Department more than on behalf of the Minister, and whenever the Minister would go in person on the service for sound broadcasting or television, it would be in connection with such things as National Loans or matters of that nature. Any other announcement by a Minister is not referred to here as an announcement. It has not the same meaning. These are announcements by a Minister, or in connection with the functions of a Minister, confined solely to his functions as Minister. I am advised on that matter that there is no legal necessity to have the words "as such" inserted in the section.
With all respect to the Minister's advisers, he may have been ill-advised. I do not think we should be overawed by these anonymous legal opinions. Reading the section with as clear a mind as I could, and some of my colleagues read it in the same way, it seems to give the Minister far too wide powers, more or less as Senator Hayes has suggested, so I hope Senator Hayes will press this amendment. I think qualification on this very widely drafted section is called for.
I should like to read, for the information of the House, Section 9 of the British Act which refers to Government control over the Authority as to certain matters. It is really analogous to our Section 41.
Subsection (1) of that section says:
The Postmaster-General and any other Minister of the Crown may, if it appears to him to be necessary or expedient so to do in connection with his functions as such, at any time by notice in writing require the Authority to broadcast, at such times as may be specified in the notice and from such of the stations used by them as may be so specified, any announcement so specified, with or without visual images of any picture, scene or object mentioned in the announcement, and it shall be the duty of the Authority to comply with the notice.
We should not be always saying "British draftsmen are best." I do not want to say that but they did see fit to use these words. Doubts were expressed by the Leader of the Opposition and by Senator Stanford, a Professor of considerable standing, that the wording is too wide in its implication and that the words "as such" would improve it and we find that the British draftsmen agree, not with the anonymous adviser or with the draftsmen who drew up the Bill, but with the people who threw out doubts here. I think that fortifies their argument.
The Minister, if he wanted to give an expression of good faith, if he really did desire to see to it that what he says he wishes would in the event occur, should, in my opinion, accept this amendment because he made no case that acceptance of the amendment would do other than confirm what he says he desires. There is no suggestion that acceptance of this amendment would change the section to mean something the Minister does not desire. The Minister has implied that the two words are unnecessary. That is his sole defence. Therefore, I think that in consideration of the doubts expressed by eminent members of the House which are fortified by the inclusion of the words in a completely analogous section in the British Act, the Minister should accept the amendment.
I should like to support speakers on the opposite side in what has been said in favour of the amendment. The clause as we have it at present seems clear to me:
The Minister may direct the Authority in writing to allocate broadcasting time for any announcements by, or in connection with the functions of, any Minister of State, and the Authority shall comply with the direction.
There is an alternative clause "or in connection with the functions of," but the main clause relates to the allocation of time for any announcement by any Minister of State, without any reference to whether it is his function as a Minister or not. It is quite clear to me that the restriction of the words "in connection with the functions of" contained in the alternative clause could not possibly apply to the main clause. The amendment makes quite clear the intentions of the Minister.
The Commission, in its Report, paragraph 117, speaks about a Minister of State with his "functions as such". The Chairman was a High Court Judge who presumably—possibly without giving it a great deal of study—thought "functions as such" the correct phrase. As Senator Donegan said, an analogous section in a British Act of 1954 talks about Ministers' "functions as such". This may be all straight and clean and above-board, but how is anyone to decide if the subsection is left as it is—I gave this example before, and I do not want to have any argument about it—in the case of what the Minister for Health thinks about the Irish Medical Association? The Minister for Health is responsible for health and it is part of his function—I could argue myself if I were in Senator Ó Maoláin's place —that he has to deal with the Irish Medical Association and that it is part of his functions to have an opinion about the Irish Medical Association and we all know what it is. Could this broadcasting Authority be directed to announce the Minister's opinion about the Irish Medical Association and could Section 31, subsection (1), be used to prevent broadcasting the Irish Medical Association's view of the Minister?
I hope I am completely wrong. I do not want to hear one or the other, but the report from which I quoted and the draft of the British draftsmen as late as 1954—there is nothing archaic about that; it is not Victorian or mediaeval legislation—has the words "as such". What is wrong with taking them, particularly if that is the Minister's intention and I accept that he is perfectly sincere and acting in good faith? Why go to this elaborate trouble to convey to me, to Senator Stanford and to many other people, that he wants this as narrow as possible? If so, why not take the words of the Report of the Commission appointed by his own Government and presided over by a judge of the High Court and of the British Act? It would not do any harm. It would give him all he wants and what all of us want. If it gives him what he wishes and satisfies us would it not be better that the Minister should satisfy everybody?
As I have already indicated to the House, I have gone into this matter and I had a certain amount of advice. I felt the same way as Senator Sheehy Skeffington when I read the subsection, that it could mean any announcement by a Minister of state.
I am advised, as I have already indicated, that it refers to a Minister in his corporate capacity. I have no objection to having another look at this.
Senators
Senator Donegan has quoted the British Act but under the British Act, each Minister has power to deal directly with the Authority, while here each Minister must come to me, to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and I think, in answer to Senator Hayes, that if the Minister for Health came to me with a statement about the I.M.A., I would not let him on.
May I say that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs does not know the Minister for Health as long or as intimately as I know him? I have too much regard for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to put that kind of obligation upon him.
If he allowed the Irish Medical Association to reply, he would have a first-class controversy which would improve the service for a short period.
On the point made by the Minister that each Minister must come to him, I read the section to mean that having successfully got past him, he can speak on any subject whatever or to have an announcement made in respect of his function. Each Minister has power to broadcast under the British Act, but it must be in respect of his particular functions as such. That is the point.
Perhaps if the Minister does not like the words "as such", if he replaces "or" by "and", it would convey the same thing.
I shall have a look at it. I shall have to follow the parliamentary draftsmen.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Amendment No. 32 will be discussed with amendment No. 31.
I move amendment No. 31:—
In subsection (3), line 51, to delete "may, subject to the consent of the Minister" and substitute "shall".
The powers taken in the whole of Section 31 are so wide that, in my view, if we want to get anywhere and if the Minister intends generally to keep the powers which he desires in subsections (1) and (2) we should and must have the situation whereby an announcement shall be made which will allow the listener to know that whatever subject matter is to be televised is televised at the request of the Minister.
Therefore, my amendment is to the effect that a straight directive should be given to the Television Authority to make the facts known to the viewer that he is listening to an announcement from the Minister or at the request of the Minister. If the Television Authority have not asked the Minister to come along on a point of interest but he has come along at his own request, the viewer should know it.
This is to be a menu in which one has no choice, as I said before. People viewing Irish television will assimilate what is given to them. It is so powerful a medium that I think it is necessary that they should be told that the opinions expressed, the statements made or even the statements made by the Minister himself, are at his request.
One could imagine where Section 31 would be used to answer critics of the Government. For instance, one would recall many situations not so very far back in our history when the Government would have been very glad to have used television which would be a far more powerful medium than newspapers or radio to answer critics in a difficult situation. Yet, in Section 18 of this Bill it devolves upon the Authority to be impartial in their presentation of news and views. How can the Television Authority be impartial in obedience to Section 18 if, in Section 31, the Minister takes the right to have announcements made and there is no statement made before or after the announcement, or preferably on both occasions, that this is the Minister's subject matter, that this is what is announced at the request of the Minister? How can Section 18 be complied with if Section 31 is wide open for the Minister to have subject matter televised, to have subject matter deleted from the news, and, at the same time, that there should be no announcement?
In the British Act, power is given to the television authority—I do not know whether that is the right term to use—to announce or not to announce that the subject matter televised was broadcast at the request of a particular Minister. I go a bit further here. I think in our situation and with our record, we should go a little further.
As long as I am on the right road, everything is all right. Senator Stanford does not go as far as I do. I am wide open to hear the House on the matter but I think that, for safety, if we are not to get the amendments we sought, or a great number of them, on the other subsections of this section, we should pass this amendment.
The political scene here is such—I said this before and I do not want to be repetitive ad nauseam—that the Television Authority will wield the greatest power ever wielded in this country. When I was coming here to-day—Senators in other parts of the country may not fully appreciate this—I saw a lot of Corporation houses each one of which had been built by way of a two-third subsidy in the town of Drogheda. In the entire row of 30 houses, there were only two which had not got a television aerial. That means that in 28 houses, the families view television. Therefore, you have a situation where an announcement is made either by the news announcer, by the Minister himself or just sent over for publication or broadcasting and nobody knows the author.
Yet, in Section 18, the Television Authority must be impartial. I think, without going into the various other obvious details, the Minister should accept this amendment and see to it that at least, when the Government in power seek to have matter broadcast, the public will know whence that matter emanates.
This Bill is doing something in this section that we would not do to a dog.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
We shall keep the horses out of it. What I mean is this. There are times when you have to muzzle the dog to prevent it from barking or biting. If a decent citizen finds a watch-dog not barking or biting when it should be barking or biting, he may be inclined to think it may bite if he is not told that the dog has an invisible muzzle on it, that it has been invisibly muzzled, and that, therefore, the creature is prevented from doing its duty but has no visible means of showing it.
I think there is an exact analogy here. This Authority is in certain circumstances to be muzzled to prevent it biting or barking and it cannot show a muzzle. It has to bear all the ignominy of not doing its duty as many people in the country may believe it should. It cannot say they were muzzled. I think that is clearly an unjust provision and I ask the Minister to reconsider it in that light.
I think everyone has the right to say: "Well, I meant to do this or that but I was censored." It might be a little dangerous if they were allowed to state: "I wanted to say this and this is what I would have said but the Minister prevented me." We can get around that. Let us keep to the main point. I think censorship is sometimes necessary but an invisible censorship is a most dangerous weapon in anyone's hands. I am very firm in my opinion that this clause in the section should go out.
On the question of whether it should be "may" or "shall"—this is the question which divides the two amendments before the House at the moment —I prefer "may" for the following reason. In chess, you can compel your opponent to make a certain move when you have made your move. In other words, if you can make a certain move with the power of compelling another move, it is a much more potent weapon than if you simply make your move and your opponent is free to choose whether he will make a certain move in reply or not. A Minister would have very great power in his hands if he could review or could censor something and compel the Authority to say that that had been censored under the Act of Parliament. I think that is dangerous. I think we should leave the discretion to the Authority whether they will state the Minister has censored them or not. I think it would be dangerous to give the Minister power to force a move in that way.
Although I am in sympathy on the whole with what Senator Donegan and Senator Quinlan suggested, we should leave as much discretion as possible to the Authority. I think the word "may" is better for the Authority than the word ‘shall" in this context.
Senator Stanford made a very good case for "may" but then "shall" has its merits also in that this Machiavellian Minister he spoke about might use Section 6 to ensure that the Authority interpreted "may" in the correct way. In any case, it is highly desirable that the Authority shall have the power to state that a direction had been given under this section. Perhaps the Minister might elucidate for us what restrictions he has in mind in the phrase "subject to the consent of the Minister"? He has given us the meaning of many phrases and they all appear restrictive, at least in the sense in which he interpreted them, but perhaps in this case he would say on what occasion he would refuse to give his consent to the Authority to say that a direction had been given.
The word "announce" in subsection (3), is not a very good one, because, though it is obvious that the Authority could announce after an item that they had broadcast it at the direction of the Minister, it is also obvious, as I think Senator Stanford pointed out, that it would be a complete farce if they were allowed to announce immediately at the end of the news something to the effect that "we are directed by the Minister not to publish any details of such and such a thing." Therefore, the word "announce" is not a very good one. In the English Act, the Authority has permission to announce things it is directed to broadcast, but it has no power to announce details of anything it has been prevented from broadcasting. There is something to be said for giving the Authority power to publish at a later date details of things it has been directed either to do or not to do. As I have said, it is obvious this could not be done immediately in most cases, but there might be a case made for doing it at a later date. It could be done to allay the fears of those who were under the impression, probably, quite wrongly, that the Minister was issuing a continual stream of directions to the broadcasting Authority not to publish certain things or not to broadcast certain things, or, possibly, to broadcast them.
I agree with some of the speakers that one cannot rule out the possibility that at some future date a Minister may attempt to abuse these powers. We may have a change of Government, or something like that. In an effort to meet the two points of view on this matter of the Minister's powers, I suggest for the consideration of the Minister that some subsection should be inserted in reference to the annual report which the Authority is directed under Section 26 to make each year, saying that in its report the Authority may publish details of any directions it has received from the Minister during the preceding year. On the one hand, that would not interfere with something that was in a sense, secretive for a short period, and on the other hand, it would not prevent the Minister from exercising his functions under these subsections, but it would allay the fears of those people who might think the Minister was issuing directions every day of every week.
There has been a certain amount of discussion about "may" and "shall" and in this case I should be in favour of saying that the Authority "may publish" because, possibly from time to time directions would be given by the Minister with which the Authority would fully agree concerning something that should never be published, something that would be embarrassing internationally or in some other way, while they could publish details at a later date of directions in which they felt the Minister was abusing his powers. I would leave it at the discretion of the Authority as to whether or not they should publish these details in their annual reports. I make that suggestion to the Minister for consideration between now and Report Stage in an effort to reconcile the two points of view on this matter.
On the whole, I do not see very much wrong with subsection (1). I think, as I have indicated by amendment, subsection (2) is far too broadly phrased and that brings me to subsection (3) and the question of these amendments. There are really two amendments moved by Senator Donegan, with one of which Senator Stanford agrees, and on the whole, I am inclined to take Senator Stanford's view. I do not think it is desirable that the Authority should be compelled by statute to announce that they have been given a direction, as Senator Ryan has pointed out, and I am somewhat at a loss to know precisely how they would say they had been forbidden under subsection (1) to broadcast visually some matter or matters. That would be somewhat difficult to do and again I think, from the point of view of leaving the Authority to be their own masters as much as possible, you have to leave to their discretion whether they would or would not make an announcement to that effect. I would leave it "may" but I think the position certainly should not be that the Minister could compel the Authority to refrain from broadcasting certain things, or to broadcast certain things, and at the same time, have power to prevent them from saying what the Minister directed them to do. So I am entirely in agreement with Senator Stanford's amendment that the words "subject to the consent of the Minister" should be deleted.
With regard to a great many announcements, using "announcement" in the restricted sense, it will be quite clear from where they came. Such cases would be announcements of posts vacant by the Civil Service Commissioners or announcements about the code number of eggs.
I am not rising early enough in the mornings to know that. There are all kinds of things the announcement of which will make it quite clear from what source they come, and it would be quite foolish to say: "We are directed by the Minister for Agriculture to say that is so," but in the case of somebody abusing his powers, the Authority should certainly not be prevented from stating afterwards in their own fashion that they had been so directed.
I do not know whether Senator Ryan's suggestion that after the lapse of nearly 12 months, or perhaps more, they should be allowed to do it, would be the right solution. In any event, the Minister should most emphatically withdraw from the position that he can be accused of having power to compel the broadcasting Authority to do something or to refrain from doing something and at the same time, exercise the power of preventing them from saying that they have been directed. Everything that Senator Stanford has said about that was correct.
This is an enormous power for any Minister to claim and try to exercise. There should be some amendment which would give the Authority power to declare that it has been instructed to do certain things. I must say that in so far as subsection (1) remains in the Bill, I do not know how the Authority is to make an announcement about that. Certainly the amendment to delete the words "subject to the consent of the Minister" would have my wholehearted support.
The intention of this subsection is to ensure that when a direction has been given to the Authority, particularly a direction to refrain from broadcasting a particular programme item, the Authority may not announce that it has received such a direction, if, by so doing, it would be likely to defeat the purpose of the direction. It is obvious that any reference to a direction by the Minister would arouse curiosity and speculation as to its purpose.
As I have already indicated, the Government will not lightly interfere with the programme of the Authority, but if at a time of tension, it feels it is necessary to direct the Authority to refrain from broadcasting some programme which would add to the tension, it will not help if the Authority announces that it is doing so in accordance with a Government direction. It is not sufficient to give discretion to the Authority to announce, or refrain from announcing, that it has received a Government direction. That would place the Authority in a most difficult position vis-a-vis the Government, and it is better that it should be recognised explicitly that this is part and parcel of the reserved power of direction which the Government should retain. I feel that the power asked for here is necessary.
I entirely sympathise with the Minister's desire in this matter, but frankly I think he is taking too much power for his desire. He wants to do something very necessary at times of crisis, but he is giving himself power under this Bill to do a great deal more than that. He is giving himself power to act as a moral censor, as any kind of censor he likes, as the section stands, and to be an invisible muzzle on the Authority. I should be very happy to hear from the Minister that he would bring forward a subsection putting into restricted language what he has just said to us, but what he has in the Bill is far wider than what he has just told us. I should be very happy if he could indicate now that he would look at this again and possibly bring forward a more restricted subsection on Report Stage. Unless he can give some indication of that kind, I feel bound to press this amendment.
In view of the opinions expressed, I wish, on behalf of Senator Quinlan and myself, who put down this amendment, each entirely without prior knowledge that the other was doing so, to withdraw, with your leave, our amendment in favour of that of Senator Stanford. The Minister makes great play with the point that he was replying to our amendment when he argued that an announcement that broadcasting matter was supressed at the request of the Minister would defeat the object, that because it would defeat the object, it would be a bad thing if they had to do it.
Since we are withdrawing our amendment, Senator Stanford's "may" gives the Authority the opportunity not to broadcast an announcement, if it would defeat the object. The Minister, of course, quotes times of crisis. We do not like to be harking back to a theme, but I am afraid I am on this theme, tuned in on that beam and on that wavelength. Say that about the time of an election, the Minister for Pleasure and Pastime, or whatever it might be, wanted an announcement made and had it made but knew that if, at the same time, there had to be a little codicil to the will, a statement at the end that the announcement was made at the request of the Minister, that would defeat the object. That is where in deference to the views of the House we are prepared to withdraw "shall" but would like to retain Senator Stanford's "may". We are all politicians, and every member knows as well as I do that if we are approaching an election and the Minister has an announcement made, the entire political value of that announcement would be destroyed if a statement were made after it that it was made at the request of the Minister.
That situation is one which Senator Stanford's amendment would take care of in a situation where you had a really good television authority. I have fears about the Television Authority which I have voiced before, but notwithstanding those fears, I am aware of the difficulties in setting up the machinery, and I ask the Minister to give way and to accept Senator Stanford's amendment because it is necessary for the very good political reason I have given.
Amendment No. 31, by leave, withdrawn.
I move Amendment No. 32:
In subsection (3), line 51, to delete "subject to the consent of the Minister".
In support of Senator Stanford's amendment, I might point out that, under Section 31 (1), the announcement which the Minister fears can be obtained periodically in Dáil Éireann. If any Deputy wishes, he can ask the Minister how many times he has exercised the rights given him under Section 31 (1) in, say, the past three months and to state those occasions. If that can be brought about, I do not see why the Minister could not have an amendment giving discretionary powers to the Authority to make the announcement, as suggested in Senator Stanford's amendment. Consequently, I support the amendment.
The British, of course, have crises. They have several crises on hand at the moment, more than we have as a matter of fact, from the point of view of international problems. Yet in their Act they do give power to the broadcasting Authority which we refuse to ours. Certainly, if the Minister wants power to deal with a special situation, he can surely think of something to put into this section which will give him that power. The broadcasting Authority will be appointed by the Minister or by the Minister of a previous Government and will certainly be amenable to reason. The opinion that in a crisis the broadcasting Authority will be composed of nine people who will take the bit in their teeth and broadcast things very bad nationally is extremely improbable, and if the power can reside in the B.B.C., it seems to me that it should reside in the broadcasting Authority we are setting up.
This debate has been very interesting. We listen and we learn, but I must admit that I do not understand the point completely. Can we not legislate for sound as well as sight broadcasting under this Bill? I cannot understand, if a Minister desires to put in a statement, why the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has to give a direction in writing that he will be heard. Surely that is not necessary at all, that a direction in writing from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has to be given to the Authority for a special statement?
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
We are on an amendment. That would be more a matter for the section when we have disposed of this amendment.
Very well; I shall pass from that. Listening to what has been said, I thought that if subsection (3) were taken away from the end of the section and placed after subsection (1), it would be more reasonable because I was reading subsection (2) as not being of any great importance at all. Surely we must admit that in times of crisis or national stringency, a direction may be given by the Minister to the Authority to refrain from making a particular statement. It is not likely that they would say that the direction——
On a point of order, this is not on the amendment at all, a Leas-Chathaoirleach, is it?
Yes, it is. I am suggesting that a way out of this difficulty would be to make subsection (3) apply only to subsection (1) and leave subsection (2) without any tail-end restrictions.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
While I have sympathy with the Senator, I think at best he is only half in order.
It seems to me that I must disagree with Senator Ó Donnabháin. I think the House will probably agree that all those announcements that Ministers want to make should be preceded by the words: "The Minister requests that this announcement be made." But dealing with subsection (1), I might say that it seems to me it would be a very difficult situation if the Authority were to announce that, as somebody said: "We cannot say anything, by direction of the Minister, about so-and-so."
I have nothing further to add to what I have already told the Seanad in connection with this subsection. The section itself, as I said, gives power to the Minister which will be used in the public interest. The public interest, as I have already stated, is of paramount importance and we feel that subsection (3) as at present drafted should stand.
Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 22; Níl, 17.
Tá
- Ahern, Liam.
- Brady, Seán.
- Carter, Frank.
- Cole, John C.
- Colley, Harry.
- Dowdall, Jane.
- Farnan, Robert P.
- Fitzsimons, Patrick.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Lahiffe, Robert.
- Lynch, Peter T.
- Ó Ciosáin, Éamon.
- Ó Donnabháin, Seán.
- O'Dwyer, Martin.
- Ó Grdáigh, Seán.
- Ó Maoláin, Tomás.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Ruane, Thomas.
- Ryan, Eoin.
- Teehan, Patrick J.
- Walsh, Louis.
Níl
- Barry, Anthony.
- Burke, Denis.
- Carton, Victor.
- Crowley, Patrick.
- Davidson, Mary F.
- Donegan, Patrick.
- Hayes, Michael.
- L'Estrange, Gerald.
- Murphy, Dominick F.
- O'Donovan, John.
- O'Keeffe, James J.
- O'Sullivan, John L.
- Quinlan, Patrick M.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Sheehy Skeffington, Owen L.
- Stanford, William B.
- Tunney, James.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Carter and Seán Ó Donnábháin; Níl, Senators Donegan and Stanford.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 33:—
33. To add a new subsection as follows:—
"( )The Minister may direct the Authority in writing to make available to any educational or productivity organisation, committee or body, broadcasting time in furtherance of the national effort of economic development."
I think we are rather reversing roles on this occasion because the purpose of the amendment is to give some power to the Minister which he has not got in other sections of the Bill. I believe if we are to make a positive use of the television medium, we should be able to make positive use of it for furthering our programme of economic expansion in industrial and agricultural development. It must be possible, and it probably will be found that the Television Authority will fill this role admirably, should they be called upon to give suggestions for programmes for such projects as the Agricultural Institute, the Productivity Council and others, and consequently, there will be no need for any intervention by the Minister.
I suggest that if there is a concentrated effort forward for a five-year programme calling for increased agricultural development, with a consequent development in other fields, the Minister then, on behalf of the Government, should have the power to ask the Television Authority to make available a certain number of hours for broadcasting by somebody nominated by the Government to carry on this work. He might be from the Agricultural Institute in the case of agriculture, or from the various bodies who should be on such a council.
In any case, this would give to the Minister power that might be very useful in making positive use of our television development, and it would be far preferable that they should be used rather than that they should come under subsection (1). It might happen that a particular type of programme might be considered unsuitable for the transmission as envisaged by the Government. Suppose there was dissatisfaction with the Irish language section, or the development of the Irish language, perhaps, under this amendment, or under some similar amendment, it might be possible to give a period of an hour, or may be longer, but some number of hours broadcasting per week to some body nominated by the Government, to do what it could on behalf of the Irish language in that period. I suggest that this does not seem to be any more harmful— as a matter of fact, it is not nearly as wide or as liable to abuse— than any of the other powers available in this Bill and it is a power which I suggest the Minister might consider taking.
I feel that with all the goodwill in the world Senator Quinlan must be a person—of course he is, living in Cork and being a little wise after the fact—who has not had the impact of television in his own home, because if he had, he would realise the extreme specialism of this television medium. To give a not very good explanation of just how smart, just how slick, you have got to be in television, one would point to the fact that 15 seconds at a particular time of the day can be worth £50 or £75 for advertising.
On television, if you are not right up to the minute in your programme, people will turn you off. If, for instance, your programme is a minute too long, that will reflect on your viewing or listening public. I do believe that a great deal of the population of Ireland having television sets will find that they will get at least freak reception from the other two stations. Therefore we have competition. We can try to include a high proportion of Irish language programmes. As suggested by Senator Quinlan, we can give a number of hours each week to such organisations as Gael-Linn—it is of course the wish of all of us, that we should put across a certain number of hours broadcasting on television in the Irish language —but remember, the people can switch you off. There are two other stations. They will get at least freak reception and if you are not up to the very latest standard, the highest standard of broadcasting technology and everything else that is good theatre, you will be switched off.
If, for instance, the production council felt that there should be for the good of the Irish nation an hour's broadcasting per night on farming or certain aspects of farming and the council had the right to take that hour through the Minister, or if sufficient political pressure could be put on the Minister so that that hour could be taken, it would be a mistake and would indicate a lack of appreciation of the kind of medium this is. We should not interfere so much with the Director General and his officers because, believe you me, he is in exactly the same position as a man in cut-throat retail trade with two other shops on his front door. He has to work out his programmes to the last minute, watch the other programmes and see that he is in first with any new way of putting his stuff across. Anybody who knows anything about the theatre will realise that it is just the little things that matter.
Any undue interference with his day-to-day production of programmes or his allocation of time to different types of programmes might well mean that a great number of people would be looking—with worse reception—at other channels. Therefore, I think the amendment would not be a good thing because it would in fact write into this Bill the supposition that somebody could come along looking for special time for special projects. The situation must be viewed in globo and the man to do it is the Director General. Undue interference would be a bad thing.
I am not accepting the amendment because first, the matter is set too wide. Any group or body with programme material to offer the Authority can do so without this amendment and if the Authority deem the programme material up to their standard they can take it, use it and pay for it. In view of the other arguments used here by Senator Donegan, with whom I entirely agree, I do not propose to accept the amendment.
Senator Donegan implied that perhaps I had never television. I lived with it to the extent that I was very familiar with it between 1946 and 1949 when I was in the United States and again in 1953 and during that period I became very much acquainted with many of its worst features.
All this bears out the emphasis on commercial cut-throat competition. Every other value we have must be sacrified to commercialism. We are putting in a service that has as its first and only guiding principle: commercialism. Commercialism means advertising, means that the Director General must view programmes on agriculture, education or otherwise, on the basis of how far he can insert advertisements. We have refused to put any restraint on advertising. Now it looks as though we are to miss the only positive use that can be made of the medium, that is, conducting specialised programmes. Remember, I put in a proviso that, if necessary, it could be by an extension of broadcasting hours. I am not suggesting that for an agricultural programme, the peak listening hours should be taken, for certainly there is a body of people throughout the country who would listen to such programmes in off hours. If the Government do not consider it is necessary to do that in an effort to further economic development, then I for one shall be very disappointed, because certainly no use is made of Radio Eireann to further any economic development.
The Senator is taking an unduly pessimistic view. After all, the Authority will have power under the Bill as it stands to allot time to educational programmes which would have the effect of increasing knowledge and therefore increasing production or productivity. I agree with the view of Senator Donegan. If we were to try to further education or agriculture by an undue directive to the Authority, we would create the position in which certain groups or organisations—and there is more than one such organisation or group—seeking increased production in industry, in agriculture, possibly in the Civil Service would feel that they had a statutory right to claim time and I greatly fear that what Senator Donegan has in mind would in fact happen.
You would ultimately be overdoing it and you would create the impression of talking at people rather than to them. They would get tired if it were not a balanced programme. That is what I gathered from Senator Donegan and I think he is right. There are no frontiers in regard to television. It may be that in five years' time we may receive broadcasts from America. That is quite possible. Then we will have both the best and the worst sides of television to which the mover of the amendment referred.
In view of that, we want to ensure that our programmes are well produced and that they are not overloaded. In other words, we should not tie the people to the one thing all the time. That is why I agree with Senator Donegan on that point. We can trust the good sense of the Authority to be the best judge.
I am not against agriculture. I was accused the other day of selling my political soul to agriculture. That is an aside. What I feel will happen if you exert undue influence on the Director General in regard, say, to the propagation of a better quality animal and put it across for ten minutes three times a week is that we would defeat our purpose. Any undue influence on the Director General would be a bad thing.
Everybody has his own hobby horse. Everybody who has a hobby horse wants more time on television, radio or in this House to discuss his particular hobby. It would be a bad thing if we tried to exert undue influence. It would interfere with our television programmes. When one looks at a night's programmes on the B.B.C. or I.T.V., one realises that they are cut to the last second. Every programme is done down to the last second of time and very well done. We have got to have the same sort of programme and undue influence would be a bad thing.
Does the Senator wish to press the amendment?
Will those Senators who desire a Division please rise in their places?
Senator Quinlan rose.
The Senator will be recorded as dissenting.
Amendment declared lost, Senator Quinlan dissenting.
Sections 31, 32 and 33, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 34.
Government Amendment No. 34:—
In paragraph (c), line 31, to delete "and" and substitute "or the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960, and".
Amendment agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 34, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
The memorandum supplied states Section 34 and the Third Schedule provide for the amendment of the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926, in a number of respects and one of the powers which the Minister is there given is the power to require the owner of electrical equipment to fit devices to restrict electro-magnetic interference.
I discussed the effects of the issue of an Order by the Minister on, say, the owner of a factory. I discussed it with an electrical contractor and I also discussed it with an electrical engineer who is an electrical consultant. He told me that quite a small factory might have to bear a cost equivalent to anything from £2 to £5 per electric motor which is used in the factory. I can envisage a factory employing 100 or 200 people which may have to spend £500 or £600 as a result of such an Order.
The danger I see about that is that complaints will be coming in to the Minister and an official of the Authority will issue an Order under this Bill when it becomes an Act requiring suppressors to be fitted to motors. The interesting thing about this Bill—it is common to a number of Acts—is that neither the Authority nor anybody else has the power to give people affected any compensation. In bringing in a Bill of this kind, the Minister implies that a disability will be imposed on anyone who has any electrical equipment. There is no way, by amendment or otherwise, they can stop that falling on the people who are so affected, if an official of the Authority serves this notice. In fact, I do not know how the Minister will overcome the position of doing away with interference, unless he serves the notice.
It is grossly unfair that the people who will be so affected cannot be compensated and I should like to have the Minister's advice on the point. It is in the public interest that the Minister should tell us why he allows legislation to be so framed. He has no way out other than by imposing a penal hardship on anyone who happens to be in any industry which has motors which at the time I mention were not fitted with suppressors to control electro-magnetic interference.
I intended to reply to Senator Burke on Second Reading in regard to the questions which he raised at that time and which he has raised again now. A large number of complaints have been coming into the Department in connection with interference. A good deal of advice has been given down the years to Ministers for Posts and Telegraphs to do something to deal with this question of interference. The cost of fitting suppressors to equipment is a matter which I have gone into. I find that the cost in a great many cases would be small but I realise that the cost in some cases can be quite considerable. I also realise that people who operate industries provide a certain amount of employment. They are doing work for the country in that field and their interests have to be considered.
Before any action is taken under this section the Authority will set up a committee, or committees, and the interests concerned will be the people who form these committees. When it is decided that such and such a factory, or such and such an electrical instrument is the cause of interference, we shall try to get the matter rectified by agreement, in so far as we possibly can. The section is so drafted as to enable the Minister and his officers to go as far as they can to secure agreement. Before any action is taken, the committees will be consulted and it is only in the extreme case where there is deliberate non-co-operation that we shall prosecute and have matters rectified through the courts.
In so far as we possibly can, we shall deal with the manufacturers and assemblers of electrical equipment and make certain that all new electrical equipment will be fitted with suppressors. As I have already stated, we have also to deal with people who have electrical appliances at present and who are engaged in industry. There are other appliances that are non-essential, or could be regarded as non-essential, and we shall try to have interference from these dealt with by arrangement and, generally speaking, the cost of suppressors for these will not be so great.
Senator Burke knows from his experience and his contacts that the fitting of suppressors to very large equipment in very big factories may involve considerable cost, but we shall do our best to meet the owners of such equipment and give them time in which to fit the necessary suppressors to eliminate electrical interference with radio and television reception, that is, in so far as it can be eliminated. I understand it is nearly an impossibility to get full elimination and we do not intend to take anybody to book overnight under this section.
I think the Minister is quite right to take powers under this Act to make regulations compelling the manufacturers of all electrical equipment to fit suppressors, or whatever device is suitable to eliminate this interference, but there could be cases of extreme hardship and I think he should have made provision to pay compensation to people for the expense involved in fitting such a device to machinery already in use. I am afraid that was not foreseen when the Bill was drafted. There is a tendency to do this sort of thing in other measures also and I feel I should warn the House about it, but I am glad I have the Minister's assurance that the approach to anybody who is affected will be as considerate as the Minister tells me it will.
I believe that is the intention, but I still think it is an undesirable feature that a small factory in rural Ireland, in the city of Dublin or any part of the State, may be obliged to spend anything from £200 to £500 or £1,000 on the fitting of suppressors so that some people may enjoy the benefit of better television reception at no expense to themselves, and maybe at some disadvantage to the place where they themselves are employed. If there is anything the Minister can do now, or at a later stage, to meet the hardship which may fall on these people I should like him to consider the matter, but, looking at this Bill as it is, and having discussed it with some lawyers, I am informed that the Minister can do nothing by way of compensating these people.
In view of the fact that this interference also affects sound broadcasting, which is actually in operation at the moment, and also that television is on the way and transmitters will be in operation in due course, would the Minister consider the possibility of making an appeal to the good spirit and sense of co-operation of our citizens who possess electrical appliances, and who operate factories, to see that from now on they will examine the position as it affects their own concerns and see whether they could not do something to eliminate interference, where it is known that interference exists?
There is one type of interference which causes considerable annoyance to numbers of people. It comes from neon signs, which are used extensively in hotels and places of that type, and in many of the surrounding houses where people receive sound broadcasts and television, they find it impossible to get good reception. Would it be possible for the Minister to consider making a public appeal to people from now on either to fix suppressors or to take whatever steps are advisable to try to cut out this interference?
All I can say in answer to Senator Ó Maoláin is that many appeals have been made by Ministers for Posts and Telegraphs before me, when the Estimate for Broadcasting was considered each year in Dáil Éireann. Many Deputies have raised this question, as have Senators, and the users of electrical equipment have been appealed to on many occasions. Whenever complaints come in, officers of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs visit the persons who own such equipment and ask them to remedy the matter. In many cases, the persons concerned have been very co-operative when their attention was drawn to the fact that their equipment was causing interference to radio reception.
With regard to the point made by Senator Burke, I could not accept the principle of the payment of compensation. I had better be frank about the matter but I hope that in time, through the instrumentality of this section, we shall arrive at the stage when suppressors will be fitted generally wherever there is interference and that whatever equipment is purchased in the future will comply with this section and have the necessary suppressors attached.
I think Senator Burke said that interference should be regarded as a nuisance and it has always been held as an established principle in law that a person who creates a nuisance, should abate the nuisance. While it would be much better to get abatement of nuisance by co-operation instead of prosecution, I feel we shall have certain people who will not act in that way and we shall ultimately be forced into the position of taking the view that sound broadcasting is a property in our time, and that has to be protected in the same way as any other form of property right, and people who create a nuisance will have to be dealt with more forcibly.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 35 and 36 agreed to.
FIRST SCHEDULE.
Question proposed: "That the First Schedule be the First Schedule to the Bill."
I do not understand the meaning of the words in subsection (1) of the first section which states: "the Authority may ... exercise the right to be acquired." What does "exercise the right to be acquired" mean?
It is purely a drafting arrangement.
Would the Minister say what it means?
It is in relation to wayleaves.
Question put and agreed to.
Second Schedule agreed to.
THIRD SCHEDULE
Government amendment No. 35:—
In page 20, paragraph 8 (d), line 21, before "or" to insert "of the working".
Amendment agreed to.
Third Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments.
Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, 17th February, 1960.
The Seanad adjourned at 10.45 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 17th February, 1960.
