This Bill deals with the provision of financial support to the Broadcasting Authority and I take it, therefore, that it is in order if comment on the Bill ranges over the operations of the Authority which this financial provision is intended to support. Everybody has got his own opinions about the national broadcasting system and it is a topic which always draws wide-ranging contributions when it is on the agenda of this or the other House. I will not treat the House to my views on the various programmes. I will limit my contribution to this debate to some general remarks about the financial position of Telefís Éireann and its financial operations, to its position of supposed monopoly, and to its specific obligations under the 1960 Act.
We know that Radio Telefís Éireann are short of money and word has been going round to the effect that so short are they of money that they may have to curtail some of their current affairs programmes. I understand from acquaintances and friends within Telefís Éireann that these reports are exaggerated and that there is no proximate prospect of severe axing of current affairs programmes.
Be that as it may, I think it important to state that virtually the only worthwhile service which Telefís Éireann provides are its current affairs programmes and its news broadcasts, in other words, its own programmes which it manufactures and puts out itself. We can do without the imported programmes: anyone who wants them can get something of the same kind on the British stations. The only thing which justifies Telefís Éireann's existence at all—and the same goes for Radio Éireann, in my view—are the programmes which it makes and puts out itself. These, in my own opinion, are of good quality. I think they measure up well to what is put out by other stations.
If these programmes are under threat either immediately or at some time in the foreseeable future because of shortage of money, the result seems to me to be that the way in which Telefís Éireann spends its money needs to be closely looked at. Perhaps when the review of the first ten years of RTE's operations is inaugurated by the Minister, this will get the attention it deserves.
I noticed last week an item in the national newspapers which I think has a bearing on what I am talking about. It was a report of a Press conference held on the 17th February in order to apprise the Press of arrangements which were being made in connection with the Eurovision Song Contest. The Eurovision Song Contest has been running for seven or eight years. In the past it has been sponsored by national stations in other countries and it appears, to judge by this Press conference, to have generated a sort of etiquette of its own, not unlike the system whereby people buy rounds of drinks whether they can afford them or not. If they sit in on the rounds to begin with they have got to fork out themselves when the time comes.
The Telefís Éireann official who headed this Press conference expressed himself, according to the Irish Times, as follows:
When we won in Amsterdam, we felt that there was no alternative to saying that we would put on the contest this year and that we would pick up the bill.
The bill is to be, on Telefís Éireann's own figures, £35,000, not counting the time and salaries of about 200 members of their staff who will be engaged for a period, long or short, in getting this operation going.
I know that what I am saying may be misinterpreted. That is a risk one always takes. I am not a "little Irelander" and I am far from saying that this country never ought to take part in any kind of international operation from which it may gain prestige. I am not saying that at all. But I am saying something which I hear Ministers saying very often when they are accused of being parsimonious with matters which the public would like to see more money spent on: we must cut our cloth according to our measure. When I hear rumours, even if they are not perhaps very solid rumours, to the effect that RTE are going to have to cut their current affairs programmes because of lack of money on the one hand, and when I see a report that the etiquette generated by the Eurovision Song Contest forces them to put their hand in their pocket for £35,000, on the other, I have to ask myself whether their financial affairs are conducted with the best interests of the country at heart.
These words are not intended in any way as a criticism of the officials in Telefís Éireann who made this decision. Officials have to make decisions and they must be allowed occasionally to make mistakes and to go wrong. I am not asserting that this is necessarily a wrong or a bad decision. I would want to have much more information about the situation out there in order to be sure about it. But I think it is worth saying that if any current affairs programme is under threat, when we find simultaneously a very large sum of money being spent not because there is a legal obligation to do so, not because there is even what I might call a very strong social obligation to do so, but simply because a convention has been generated by this Eurovision Song Contest, then I think we are in danger of paying a very high price for something, or of throwing away something much more valuable instead of it.
I do not know what it would cost to put on the kind of current affairs programme which is well thought of. I do not know, for example, what the annual budget of 7 Days would be or of Féach or of the extremely good series of programmes called Report which were put out during the winter. I cannot make a guess at that, but I imagine that £35,000 would amply cover a season of such programmes. If the result of the economies which face RTE is to be that we are to have to do without a programme of that kind simply in order to meet what are supposed to be obligations under the Eurovision Song Contest etiquette, then I think we have made a poor bargain.
I was glad when the Irish contestant won the Eurovision Song Contest, just as I am glad if an Irish person does well in any walk of life. However, I observe that the people who are the main beneficiaries of that song contest are the promoters and the writers of the songs and the people who subsequently make records of these songs and sell them make gigantic profits. I do not begrudge them the profits but how can a station such as Telefís Éireann, which is operating on a shoestring, afford to subsidise this kind of operation to this degree?
I do not want to labour this point but I hope that I have made an impression on the Minister and on the people on the other side of the House. I believe I speak for most Irish people when I say that we would think it a bad bargain to lose a good current affairs programme merely to have the honour of conducting the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. We could still see it no matter where it was held, even if it was held in Reikjavik. In other words, the ordinary viewer would not be done out of the Eurovision Song Contest even if were held somewhere else. If the financial consequences of standing our round in the Eurovision Song Contest will result in the curtailing of current affairs programmes then we have made a bad bargain.
Let me say in defence of the officials in Telefís Éireann who made this decision, something which is very much to their credit: I understand that the possibility of insuring against winning the Eurovision Song Contest was investigated a few years ago. It was foreseen that, sooner or later, an Irish entrant might win the Eurovision Song Contest and then it would be time for Radio Telefís Éireann to stand their round and that it would be an expensive round to stand. Credit must be given to the officials of that organisation when they investigated the possibility of insuring themselves against that, much as the husband of an expectant mother insures himself against having twins. Unfortunately, the insurance companies which were approached were not able to quote terms for this unprecedented and incalculable risk and so the idea came to nothing. I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not, in any way, accuse the people of Telefís Éireann of wasting money or being extravagant or prodigal, but there is a financial calculation here which is of national importance. I think I would have made the decision differently. I want to impress upon the Minister that if this authority is allowed to spend money on this scale in response to a mere convention or etiquette we will be paying a very high price for it if the few current affairs programmes which we have may be curtailed as a result.
The Minister, in his opening address, spoke about advertising and about the role which advertising plays in the finances of Radio Telefís Éireann. He mentioned, as being a point of view with which he had some sympathy, the idea that advertising might be dropped altogether. He pointed out, quite rightly, that that would involve a very high cost in lost revenue on the authority and make their operations that much more difficult.
In regard to the overall finance of a television or a broadcasting station we are down at the very bottom of the European league in regard to licence fees even though some people think the licence fee is high. I may be laying myself open to misinterpretation— some Members of the other side of the House are too honourable to do that— but some might say: "There is Fine Gael for you, they want to increase the television fees." What I am saying is my own point of view and it need not be attributed to the rest of my party. I am not ashamed to say it and I would not be ashamed if my party held the view that the television licence fee at the moment is relatively low. It works out at about 1½p per day. It is right down at the bottom of a list of comparative fees in other countries which I have here and which, if the House will be patient enough, I will read out very quickly. The licence fees in other European countries are as follows: Sweden, £14.50: Austria, £13.60; Denmark, £12.65; Norway, £12.25; Switzerland, £11.90; Germany, £11.60; Netherlands, £8.65; Finland, £8.5; Belgium, £8; Italy, £8; France, £7.50; Great Britain, £6, which is now going up to £7 and to £12 for colour television. We are below all these countries. It would be worth our while to pay more via licence fees in order to rid ourselves of the disgusting albatross which advertising represents around the neck of a broadcasting service. It would be well worthwhile to pay even the figure which the Minister mentioned. I am inclined to doubt if that figure can be correct because I observe that even in Belgium, where no advertising is accepted on the national broadcasting network, the licence fee is only £8. Even if the Minister is correct, and I assume that his sources are more accurate than mine, it would not be a bad thing to have a high licence fee by increasing it two or three times in order to rid ourselves of this necessity to run advertising on our television and radio service. The Minister has not been slow to increase postal charges by this kind of factor over the past few years. The average small firm and the average citizen who, in the way of his business or the course of his profession, must use the postal service must spend far more than this figure every year in buying postage stamps. I do not want to pre-empt my party's position in this regard, but for myself I would not oppose a very substantial increase in the licence fee if we could rid our service of advertising.
I want to make it clear that I recognise that that would bear hardly on some sections of the population, particularly on those who rely most on the broadcasting service in order to make their lives tolerable. I am in no way suggesting that this should be an unqualified rise. If a rise of this kind were made it ought to be graded in such a way that pensioners and people who, for one reason or another, are deserving cases should be exempted from having to contribute in any way at all, just as they are to some extent at present. It would be well worth our while, if we can get a good service free of advertising, to pay that extra money.
What I object to is not so much the interruption which advertising represents, in the middle of a programme, and not so much the quality of the advertising, which is sometimes so vulgar as to make one ashamed of one's species, but what I object to is that, according to people who work in that station, the content of programmes has to be trimmed in order to suit the advertiser and programmes timed in order to suit the advertiser. You cannot put on a programme of a certain kind at a peak viewing hour because the advertiser cannot be persuaded to associate the advertising of their product with it. That imposes instantly a serious fetter on the freedom of the television station and it reduces to nonsense the obligation imposed on it by section 17 of the 1960 Act to have regard to the national aims of restoring the Irish language and preserving and developing the national culture. There is not much money in either of these things, and the result is that they are pushed out to the far ends of the schedules, both in sight and in sound. I am against that. If that obligation is to be taken seriously we must make it possible for Telefís Éireann to take it seriously, and we must relieve them of the burden which now lies on them and which ensures that programmes of a kind tending in this direction cannot be shown at a time when people are likely to be looking at them or listening to them.
The second matter with which I want to deal is the question of the position of Telefís Éireann itself as a supposed monopoly. I have noticed over the last year that every time a Minister in the position of the present Minister is asked in the Dáil if he will license this or that broadcasting enterprise the reply which always comes back, and which I presume is inspired by his Department, is that no broadcasting whatever can be permitted except broadcasting emanating from this authority.
I have said and written this before, but I have never have had a chance to say it before in this House and I want to say it now in circumstances of the greatest solemnity that are accessible to me. The Constitution of this country does not permit monopoly of broadcasting; it does not permit it and I do not care whether the body which lays claim to that monopoly is Radio Telefís Éireann or anybody else. In my opinion under the Constitution of this country there can be no such thing as a monopoly of broadcasting except in so far as the monopoly may arise simply from the fact that nobody else wants to broadcast; but if Members would like to look at Article 40 of the Constitution they will find that the organs of public opinion are listed in such a way as not to differentiate between the Press and broadcasting. Who here would tolerate for an instant a monopoly of the Press? No party in this State has ever tried to monopolise the Press, and I believe the people would not tolerate it if they did. Nobody has ever tried to enforce a monopoly of the cinema, which is also mentioned in the same breath by the Constitution; and it would not be tolerated if such a thing were attempted. Why, therefore, must we assume that a monopoly of broadcasting is permissible? In my opinion, it is not permissible; it is clearly, or perhaps I should say inferentially, forbidden by the Constitution, and a Department or a Minister has no right to say: "You may not broadcast because RTE has a monopoly."
Not alone am I fortified in that point of view by the Constitution, I am also fortified in it by the European Human Rights Convention which in the relevant section, Article 10, reads as follows:
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
The clear inference and the clear meaning of that Article is that while the State is entitled to impose a licensing regime on broadcasting—I do not deny that and I would not dispute it for a second and I think that the State ought to be entitled to impose licensing control—while that permission exists, the permission to license, there is no basis in the European Human Rights Convention, any more than there is in the Constitution, for the idea that the State is entitled to monopolise the air. The State has no such right or title, and while I realise that this matter is not directly in point in what we are debating today, it is in a sense in point, because the only alternative to having commercial advertising on the national network is to have another network, as they have in Britain and in other countries, in which advertising is permitted and in which the people are allowed to make money out of the advertising.
At the moment there is no such second channel or second network here, either in sight or in sound, and whenever the question of having one has been raised the answer from the Minister's Department has always been the same. It is an answer which is utterly without foundation in law, either the law of this Constitution or the law of the European Human Rights Convention to which this State has subscribed. It is a point of view which is absolutely wrong from beginning to end, and that must be said unambiguously in this House, even if it has never been said in the other House.
The last occasion on which this point of view was put forward by the Minister, or his predecessor, was in connection with the question as to whether the State would permit Radio Chonamara to continue its broadcasting in Irish. That was a station set up by some young people over in Connemara who were not satisfied with the Irish broadcasting in Radio Éireann and who wanted to produce their own programmes. I am not defending and I never have defended activity which is outside the law or which goes alongside the law or tries to overlook the law or treat it as if were not there, but the answer which was given to the Deputies—Deputy Begley of our party and Deputy Boland who was then an Independent—was that no such permission could be given because of the monopoly held by RTE; I am paraphrasing the reply. That answer was wrong, and in my view people in the situation of the young men running Radio Chonamara are entitled to be told that the State has no right to prevent people broadcasting on principle and that if the State refuse to operate a proper licensing regime there can be no reason to refrain from taking the State to law and having that declaration made by a court.
I am not advocating a free-for-all in broadcasting; I am not advocating that the present law, wrong though it is, should be broken, and I never have advocated nor would advocate it. I want to make it clear in the Minister's hearing and the hearing of his officials that that point of view is utterly wrong, and that the sooner this State gets around to considering what would be appropriate criteria for the licensing of an independent station the better.
I want to see these criteria debated in each House of the Oireachtas and I want them to be fair criteria. I do not want to find on waking up one morning that an independent radio or television station has sprung into being with the blessing of the Minister and that it is being run by some kind of consortium. Past experience leads me to suspect only too clearly what shape and colour that consortium would have. We must have a proper law governing the licensing of further broadcasting enterprises, even though at the moment it may not be economic to have a second broadcasting enterprise at all; but perhaps it would become economic and when that day comes a serious enterprise which wishes to use the wavelengths of this country to broadcast in this country cannot be prevented from doing so merely because it suits the Government to keep RTE in a position of monopoly. It cannot lawfully or constitutionally be prevented from doing so and, rather than have a nasty row when the time comes, I suggest that the Minister and his Department should give some thought to a Bill— if you like an amendment to the Bill already in front of us—which will provide criteria for the licensing of other stations and which will ensure that these other stations will not have a particular political or social or religious or any kind of sectional complexion; which will make sure, in other words, that we will not have to be looking over our shoulders at the independent station in the same way as we do at Radio Telefís Éireann—although on the question of impartiality I have no complaints to make about RTE.
I believe that on the whole RTE observe their duty to be impartial as well as they can. That does not mean that there are not programmes that I would rather not have seen, and it does not mean that I do not think undue prominence is given to trivialities such as opening of bootlace factories by Ministers, showing them grinning on the screen—it is not a news item at all. I think that a great deal of prominence is given to trivial things like that, to the ordinary parts of a Minister's daily round, things which would not be seen at all on the television screens in another country—another democracy at least—that, perhaps, is something with which one might legitimately find fault. But, by and large, I do not mind recording my view that RTE does behave impartially on the whole; and certainly so far as parliamentary reporting is concerned it would be a very carping man indeed who would find fault with what they do.
Those are my views therefore on the question of RTE's alleged or supposed monopoly and my advice is to the effect that the Government should immediately consider further legislation to make provision for the day when someone is going to want to put on a serious independent service outside RTE. They cannot constitutionally be prevented from doing so, but they can, I think, be licensed and control can properly be exercised. Now is the time to be giving thought to that and not when the thing may boil up into a nasty political row.
The last matter I want to deal with concerns the national objectives which section 17 of the 1960 Act imposes upon Radio Telefís Éireann as a constant aim. I have already said that the duty of satisfying advertisers, of keeping happy the people who are selling us things and trying to get us to buy more things—even things we do not want—has to a large extent, in my view, frustrated the aim behind section 17. At the same time I must, in fairness to RTE, say that on television their services to the Irish language are respectable. I think more could be done but I realise that a balance must be kept and that many people prefer to see a programme in the language which they understand and these people may be in the majority. Let me say that I have been surprised at the number of people who view Irish language programmes. Formerly, I imagined that the number of people who viewed these programmes was small but I appeared on a number of these programmes during the last year and I was amazed at the number of people who had been watching them. This is a very encouraging thing. Even people whose knowledge of Irish is limited find these programmes interesting, find it perhaps a bit of a challenge to watch a programme like Féach or Agallamh and see what they can make of it. The television medium is something which offers enormous potentiality in the direction of maintaining respect for the Irish language.
I am by no means a believer in an instant solution for the Irish language problem any more than I believe that an instant solution can be found for the Partition problem. I do not, for one second, believe that Radio Telefís Éireann alone can restore the language. I am not even sure that it can be restored at all as the everyday spoken language of the entire people. But I believe that a holding operation is necessary until such time as the Irish language, in some shape or form, perhaps geographically small, finally gets a firm toe-hold from which it can no longer be dislodged. That time has not yet arrived, but it may arrive, and it is up to us to make sure that nothing is done, in the meantime, which makes that development impossible. To that extent the potentiality of Radio Telefís Éireann as the medium of a holding operation—if I am describing it clearly enough—is extremely important. Their function in keeping the Irish language in people's houses and before their eyes is extremely important and extremely valuable. On the whole, so far as television is concerned, that duty has been well carried out. I have heard complaints that the same cannot be said of the sound broadcasting. I would not like to judge on that aspect of it, because I am not a devoted radio listener.
The importance of this aspect of the authority's operations seems to me to be extreme, and anything which stands in the authority's way, such as the necessities imposed by advertising, needs to be removed if the authority are to discharge this duty properly.
That is not the only duty which section 17 places on the authority. It is also supposed to "preserve and develop the national culture." I think the phrase "national culture" is an overworked, weak and useless piece of jargon. We all have different pictures in our minds when we hear the expression "national culture" used. But I know exactly what is not the national culture. I can recognise immediately something which could not possibly come under the category of national culture, even though I might find it hard to define what is national culture. I know very well what does not fit into that description. Many of the imported shows which Radio Telefís Éireann put on fit very easily into the description of "un-national culture". I hope I never have been, or never will be, narrow-minded in this regard and I am in no way complaining about tastelessness or anything of that kind. I am complaining about the utter triviality and, in the general sense, the vulgarity of some of these imported television programmes. I am not complaining that they are tasteless or have occasions of sin in them, but that they are absolutely mindless. Those shows, which sometimes last for an hour — until some light relief comes on in the shape of the news or the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis or something of that kind — are paid for and brought in here, I presume, in order to support the advertising which interrupts and surrounds them and encloses them at each end. So long as Radio Telefís Éireann are not provided with enough money to look after the national culture — weak though that phrase may be — and to make their own programmes we cannot expect the authority to fulfil the duties laid down in section 17. Radio Telefís Éireann should be enabled to make their own programmes, whatever they may be about, which is, after all, what national culture is.
I hope I have not left anyone here under any misapprehension about what I mean in that regard. If Radio Telefís Éireann decide to make a programme, say, about the progress of drainage scheme or something of that kind, it may have a limited appeal, but it deserves to be ranked, for the purpose of section 17, under the heading of national culture. This phrase just does not mean singing, dancing, intoning ballads or playing uilleann pipes. It means the possibility of television mirroring our whole lives for us and projecting the things which we experience and about which we feel strongly or the things which are happening to our neighbours about which we would not otherwise hear. The authority, at present, are expected to do the impossible both in regard to the Irish language and in regard to the national culture if they have this financial millstone around their neck whereby they are dependent on advertising and obliged, in order to keep the advertising people happy, to import these revolting programmes and put them on hour after hour at peak-viewing times such as Saturday evenings.
I am afraid that much of what I have said may sound doctrinaire and narrow-minded. I do not mean it to sound like that but I would wish that this television and radio station would be able to provide, during their entire hours of operation, the same good quality viewing which they provide during the honours in which they provide their own programmes. That would be my wish. If they could achieve that standard they would be earning the thanks of all of us. I urge the Minister to bring the same courage—or should I call it recklessness—to bear on the question of television licences as he and his predecessors have brought to bear on postage stamps. If we could achieve this kind of service, even by putting up the price of a television licence to £12 or £15 a year, we would be getting a good bargain. I would repeat that I am speaking here for myself and not for my party, but that I would not be a bit ashamed if my party formally were to propose that solution.
The final remark I want to make bears on the possibilities open to Radio Telefís Éireann in regard to the North of Ireland. Radio Telefís Éireann existed during nine years, from 1960 to 1969, of comparative peace in the North of Ireland. Those were years of ecumenism—years of religious ecumenism and, if you like, political ecumenism—and they were years in which an opportunity might have been taken to use this medium as a forum where people from the North could meet each other, talk to each other, argue with each other and, perhaps in a mild way, fight with each other. That opportunity might have been taken, but it was not taken. There were occasional programmes about the North. I admit there has been a tremendous amount of coverage of Northern affairs lately but it has not all been of the kind that would make people friendlier with each other. Perhaps that is unavoidable because events have dictated that it should be that way.
That opportunity has been missed during the last nine years. It may be boring for the average Dublin, Cork, or Galway viewer to have to listen to men with Ulster accents arguing with each other about housing allocations in Dungannon or something of that kind, but it may have a great effect up in Northern Ireland. I believe that if Radio Telefís Éireann could establish themselves as an all-Ireland station, even what we think of, perhaps wrongly, as the other side in the North would begin to look at it. I believe that Radio Telefís Éireann should take on the Ulster stations on their own ground, even at the cost of boring some of our viewers in this part of Ireland.
If we are serious about a 32-county State we must begin to look at things in this way. The television medium is a uniquely effective way of presenting people to one another, of getting them to understand one another, of making their problems immediate. There is no need to offer the House a eulogy of television; it has been done before and will be done again. But that is an opportunity which Telefís Éireann missed. I do not blame the authority for missing it, because the Government missed it as well. The Government did not give an hour's thought to the North of Ireland during the 1960s until the trouble broke out. Perhaps other parties were not much better in that respect; I am not making a political point of it. We all neglected the North during these years. Now we see how important it is to get people to understand each other and to be able to live with one another.
We should all encourage Telefís Éireann to devote a period two or three times each week to a programme of some type which will get Northern people of every kind involved in discussions on current affairs. These may be of small interest in this part of the country but will have a positive effect up there.
I am not expert enough to outline what I think is called the chemistry of such a programme. I leave that to television journalists. They should be well able to contrive it. They should be allowed and encouraged to do this. If I had any amendment to offer on the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960, it would be to extend section 17 in order to add what has always been taken to be this general national objective—the reconciliation of all Irish people whatever their origins or whatever their class or religion—to the national objectives of restoring the Irish language and preserving and developing the national culture.
I am grateful for the attention of the House, and I urge the Minister to do his best to give Telefís Éireann the freedom which it needs in order to do the job which all Irish people, in their heart of hearts, expect of it.
