Seanad Éireann debate -
Friday, 6 Jun 1975

Vol. 81 No. 8

Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Bill, 1975: Committee Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That Section 6, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Daly

I want refer to the RTE programmes which I was speaking about before the adjournment and the choice of programmes and the people's right to decide on programmes. I favour "The Riordans", "7 Days", "The Late Late Show", "The News" and sport. Other people may not be interested in these programmes and think a particular programme was a load of rubbish. We have very good material in RTE and very good men there. We have the professionals I named and we have the political correspondents, Ted Nealon, Arthur Noonan and Donal Kelly. Ted Nealon forecast our last election results very well and I was glad to see at a later date that he forecast that we will have 86 seats after the next election. I am sure that is fairly accurate.

Senator West spoke about the right to legislate for people. I agree we have a duty up to a point. We would not give people cannabis, or dangerous drugs, or guns, or something like that. Surely it is a majority decision and if one legislator thought on certain lines the majority would decide. Talk about the pollution of people's minds makes you wonder why all the people who for the past number of years have been enjoying these other programmes in Dublin are not all depraved, are not all crazy. Looking at the people on the other side of the House, they look normal enough to me. They have not been inhibited or influenced by these terrible programmes from the BBC. How can you decide what is a popular programme, what is the right programme?

When we had "The School Around the Corner" on RTE with Paddy Crosby with a bunch of unrehearsed children, it got the highest Tam-ratings ever achieved in this country. This proves that people have simple tastes. The people can choose if you give them the right to choose. The big advantage to people who have a number of channels is that they can switch off if they do not like what is going on, or if they do not want to listen. There are times when you would like to have that privilege here.

Senator Martin asked the Minister a valid question yesterday evening: What will be the cost of rebroadcasting of BBC 1? He should have gone further than that. He should ask the Minister to ascertain also what the costs of an alternative programme would be. There is no good in giving us one figure without giving us the others. Senators spoke about giving rights to the BBC to take over our corridor, to take over our sovereignty and the usual cliché about selling out. If you do not agree with certain people and you want to take a certain course, you are selling out. That cliché is worn out. The BBC are not bringing over transmitters. They are not putting them down on the grounds in Montrose. They are not getting a right of title to the grounds in Montrose. It is not permanent.

What the Minister is doing is providing a rebroadcasting of this service. The second channel can be used for any programme of any kind, a selection of programmes or any particular programme from any other country he wishes to rebroadcast. We are tied to nothing. This talk about giving away rights is a lot of nonsense. We are giving nothing away. We are just giving the people what they want. All the indications in the single channel area are that they want a second channel. They want the BBC. If the majority want it, they are entitled to get it in any true democracy.

It will be interesting to hear what my colleague from North Kerry says when she speaks. She may have to toe the party line but I think I am giving a fair representation of the opinions of the majority of viewers in Kerry. I would also like to hear more people making contributions from the single channel areas. We seem to have a monopoly, for some reason or another, of people who have all the channels.

We heard Senator Browne yesterday. I do not like talking about people when they are not present, but it is not my fault that he is not present. I deliberately waited until after lunch in the hope that he would be here. He made his contribution and then he said to the Minister that he would listen to his reply if it did not take too long. Here is a man who wants to dictate how long the reply should be. Not only can we not listen to the BBC, we cannot listen in our own Chamber if he has his way. I do not know if he is a song writer but he must have written the words of "I'll do it my way" which Frank Sinatra sings. If you do not do it his way, then it cannot be done at all. I have made my case as a person from a single channel area. I will when he makes his reply. I am sure he will cover all these points.

Cáit Bean Uí Eachthéirn

It looks as if a challenge has been laid down to me. I have already given my views very forcibly on the Second Reading. There may have to be a certain amount of repetition. Senator Yeats and Senator Lenihan and, indeed, many other speakers, have outlined all of the reasons why Fianna Fáil Members oppose section 6. It is a very serious section and a very serious issue. I am glad it has been taken very seriously by this side of the House and by the Independent Members as well. I will try to keep my comments as brief as possible.

The first thing that worried everybody yesterday was that the powers in this section were dictatorial and despotic. That was debated at length and there is no point in my going into all the reasons which were given. I sincerely believe that there is no public demand for the rebroadcasting of BBC 1 in its entirety. It is quite likely that parts of BBC 1 would be useful and educational and entertaining. As Senator Lenihan said, let us pick and choose. Senator Martin has already shown us that much of BBC 1 has so much mush in it that it can in no way be compared with BBC 2. Some people say there is a demand for a second channel. I have not heard too many people clamouring for it, but it seems to be the opinion of the House that there is a demand for a second channel. If we are to have a second channel I believe we should not opt for a second-rate or a third-rate channel. What we should be looking for is a superior channel. We in Fianna Fáil and the independent Senators have outlined how a superior second channel can be provided.

Several people have discussed this proposition with me and they are appalled and alarmed at our handing over of our air waves to a British station. We all know from past experience how much England has taken from us and how little she has given. As Senator Martin pointed out, this is an opportunity. We are giving them a new opportunity for a reconquest of the minds and souls of our Irish people. Previously they were interested only in our land. There was a time when they were also interested in our spiritual values and in our national values. Everybody here is educated enough to know that they tried to get rid of our Irish language with their scór bata, their score stick, which they marked every time you spoke a word of Irish and for which you were duly punished. In spite of that oppression and severity, they did not succeed in wiping out our language, and now they are being given a second chance to make a reconquest of the minds and souls and thinking of our Irish people.

People who have spoken to me are very perturbed and very upset at our handing over our air waves to an alien culture. We all know it is a culture with a completely different set of values, as I stated on the Second Reading. It is completely different from our values and from our standards and from our general philosophy. Not only is it different from our values, but it has no respect whatsoever for our Irish values or for our national identity. This has been very well proven in the way they have handled the situation in the North.

The point is that we are allowing BBC 1 into every home in Ireland. Many people said we have no control whatsoever over it. Here I would congratulate Senator Martin on his excellent exposé of the dangers inherent in allowing the BBC to be broadcast into every home in Ireland. He compared it, as other people did, with a recolonisation of this country in a different way. In the old days it was the taking over of our land. Now it is the taking over of our minds and of our souls.

All the Fianna Fáil speakers have been constructive. They have put before us ways and means of having a second channel and having a second channel, as Senator Robinson said, that will give us the cream and not the skim milk which Senator Halligan wished us to have and which he said the Irish people want, which I believe is an insult to the intelligence of the Irish people. We may not have a whole lot of worldly goods but we have values and we have standards. Please God we will always hold on to them if we have sufficient people to fight for them.

If there is money available to the Minister I propose that he should expend it on improving the RTE facilities. He should give us more home-produced programmes. We do not care what they are, if they are home-produced. They can be educational, cultural, entertaining, current affairs, or you name it. The Minister may decide that he would like another body to provide a second channel. We are quite prepared to go alone with that so long as it is an Irish body. The Minister may call that censoring, but I do not believe it is. It is our right to pick and choose what is best for our people and our country, and not to put on our air waves some of the mush we have been told by Senator Martin is on the BBC. Already we are overwhelmed and swamped with Anglo-Irish culture. It would be a relief if we had a second channel that would counter-balance that and off-set it. The country is in a very difficult financial situation. We have inflation and our balance of payments and everything else have gone haywire. I believe the money is not there for a second channel. It may come some time, but I do not think it is just over the road. If there is money in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and if the Minister is as concerned as he says he is with the western sea coast, the best way he cna help the people in the west of Ireland is by giving them a good phone service. That is their big problem. Industrialists and other people would be quite willing to give of their talents, their money and their ability in the west of Ireland but for the deplorable phone service there. We should get our priorities right. A second channel is a luxury at this point in time and first things should come first.

Some Senator said that most Irish people knew nothing about Irish culture nor cared about it, because most of them had not got post-primary education. I would like to remind the Senator that the people who got no post-primary education held on to all our values. They held on to our Irish language, our Irish music, our Irish songs, our Irish dancing, and our Irish folklore. They did this in spite of oppression and hunger.

He spoke about being hungry and haing to go to work at 12 or 14 years of age. That happened to thousands and thousands of people and they were the people who held on to our national heritage and to the dúchas of this country, not the highly educated highbrows who frowned on them because many of them had become West Britons. It was the people in the highways and byways who held on to all we should now teasure dearly. We are now reaping the reward. We have a great revival. We have Comhaltas Ceoltóirí. We hae the rinnceoirí. In Kerry we have the fantastic Siamsóirí na Ríochta which can take its place on any world stage. We are greatly indebted to all these people. Instead of adopting the depressing and shoneen outlook adopted by senator Harte, we should thank these pople and be grateful to our ancestour for handing down this wonderful teasure to us. Are we to allow that to be diluted by a certain amount of pollution? If we had a referendum on this, the people would object to the proposal in a very strong manner.

The Senator said he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Neither was I, but the spoon I had was full and overflowing with a sense of values of Irish nationality, and a respect for everything cherished by our 1916 leaders and those prior to 1916, Douglas Hyde, Lady Gregory and so on. This was not peculiar to me. Every boy and girl of my age group was fed with the same spoon. About 95 per cent of our people are loyal to that tradition and are proud of it. It is the one thing which gives us our identity when we go abroad or when foreign visitors come here. It is obvious to them that we have a different outlook on life, that we are not as materialistic as other countries. The day we lose our spiritual values, and our respect for these things, we can say good-bye to this country as an Irish nation.

I appeal to the Minister to delete section 6 because it is an insult to the brains and to the talents of our Irish men and women. As Senator Martin said, we have a fantastic challenge before us now in putting on a second channel. There is talent in every nook and corner of Ireland that will help in establishing a second channel and give us superior programmes which we can augment with programmes from other countries. We should choose the gems from what they have to offer.

Somebody said we are not far away from satellite transmission. That is all the more reason why we should have our house in order for that day. Unless we build up a decent Irish first channel and second channel, when the day of the satellite transmission comes, we will be the poor scholar in Europe. Satellite transmission will give an enormous opporutnity for showing our identity and our individuality to other countries. The world has become so small that we must be able to project the best we have, and we will not do this by rebroadcasting BBC 1. As Senator Martin said, even if it were the best of the British programmes, it would not be good enough for us. We must have a strong Irish content in that second channel. I should like to ask the Minister how he found out that BBC 1 was preferable to our people rather than BBC 2. What referendum did he take? Did he, like Dev, look into his own heart?

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

On a point of fact, might I interrupt the Senator? I have already corrected this. What I found out was that there was definite preference — or appeared to me to be — for a live, rebroadcast channel from outside, whether BBC 1, UTV, BBC 2 or not.

Cáit Bean Uí Eachthéirn

I understand that it is going to be BBC 1. We do not want that.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Would the Senator like BBC 2, then?

Mr. Lenihan

A selection from it.

Cáit Bean Uí Eachthéirn

We want a selection from all — BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV, European programmes — to augument the best we have to offer here.

Mr. Lenihan

In a complementary fashion.

Cáit Bean Uí Eachthéirn

We should be able to stand on our own feet. We can do it. We have proved that, despite the limited resources available to RTE. If more money could be made available to them — we are told money is available — we could provide a television second to none. We do not want to be a carbon copy of any country, which we will be if we rebroadcast British programmes without an Irish content. Our television service must have the stamp of this country on it.

Mar focal scoir; an rud atá beartaithe ag an Aire, níl ann sop in ionad na scuaibe. Bíodh muinín sige as ár muintir féin agus ní theipfidh siad orainn mar a deineadar riamh.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

It is obviously justifiable and perfectly understandable that Fianna Fáil should declare their direct opposition to this section.

Mr. Lenihan

And Senator Martin.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

I am grateful to the Senator for his first assistance. It si understandable that this direct opposition should be put down. It is legitimate for Senator Martin and the Fianna Fáil Party to put it down — if he likes this conjecture being presented repetitively, I can please him or not according to his wishes on it, sensing that what is essentially a fundamental political question should be presented, therefore, in party political terms. It is unfortunate, from the point of view of the effect on the debate, that this kind of polarisation on this question should have resulted. Senator Ahern in her serious contribution referred to this amendment and said it should be taken seriously. Of course, it is taken seriously by everyone. The section is taken seriously by everyone here.

It is pertinent to what I have to say that I should say, at this stage, that my contribution is very much affected by the Minister's acceptance of Senator Horgan's amendment, which means we can anticipate that the content of this debate will be considered by the Minister before a final decision is made on this question of a direction and that, at that point, we can more fully discuss the implications and significance of the direction. For my part, it is a little wide of section 6. But at the very beginning of the debate the Minister said that a discussion of these issues in depth would be no less significant than the actual legislation. That is important and it is interesting that we had on the Second Reading almost seven full days of a debate, except, I think, for the last day. This section alone has been going on for, I think, nearly two days. That is a great tribute to the Minister and the quality of his original contribution, to his reactions to the amendments, to his reply to the Second Reading. I am sure everyone here would like me to ask him to bring back to the Cabinet the message that we would like this kind of use of the Seanad to continue, to have many more Bills of this kind.

After all, we have nearly ceased to be a secret society as a result of the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Bill. We hae broken through into the Irish Press, which is really truth breaking through into the news. It is no longer a secret society even though some still nobly remain silent and some are — one thinks and feels sometimes — rather ignobly silenced. In so far as one has to reach print through a series of different minds one does not know quite how to address, and if one fails to get the right kind of language — which one seems to fail to do continually — one just does not get on to the print eventually. I am delighted support has come from all sides on this. The mere fact of Fianna Fáil opposition to the section or, preferably, a series of Fianna Fáil amendments saying——

Mr. Lenihan

And six university representatives——

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

Six university representatives.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Lenihan made a long contribution this morning.

Mr. Lenihan

It was good, was it not?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Splendid, but I think Senator Alexis FitzGerald should be allowed to make his contribution.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

As before, a Leas-Chathaoirleach, I am grateful to you for protecting me. I did get assistance from Senator Lenihan at an earlier stage. I felt it would not be the end of the assistance I would get. Senator Martin as I pointed out had got Fianna Fáil's support for his motion. I do not know just quite how all that worked. Now I understand that the six university Senators are in support of it, even though five of them have not signed the motion. I would be getting into a bed with an extraordinary number of chaps if I got into that bed. Indeed, if one isolated the Fianna Fáil Party and just looked to the six university Senators, somebody would be quick enough out of the bed I imagine. all I have to say to anyone who might invite me to get in there is that I have got frightfully long toe nails and my caresses might be very disappointing though we might share the same objections.

On this section, I would like to think that the Minister — and I mean this very seriously — would get the Second Reading debate and the debate on this section bowdlerised, or deuniversitised or de-Fianna Fáilised, or discharged from political party jargon and the attendant emotion so that, drained out of all this, might come for cool consideration the points which have been made. I have confidence that, when he said the discussions of these issues in depth would be no less significant than the actual legislation, he meant it; there was a commitment to truth involved in that and that, in accepting this amendment, he accepts its implications. Incidentally , in complimenting the Minister on accepting the amendment may I go on to say that the circumstances of the acceptance are to be noted, that is, the assurance that we would be discussing the matter before the final decision was made, notwithstanding the terms of the amendment, because no final decision could be made by people with whom deals are to be done if it was to be subject to an annulment process in these Houses irrespective of the swaggering majorities to which no doubt, we can confidently look forward for decades.

That to me is important, because it means that one can look forward to another opportunity of saying the sorts of things one would like to say. I hae not too many points to make. Having said that I have found, from experience in this House and indeed other Members of the House, if they have a dull recollection of that experience, may have found too that when I say I hae a few points only to make it does not always prove to be so. That is a warning, after the initial ecouragement.

I should like to pick out one point on this; that is, with regard to the whole business of discovering what the people want. The point has been made, not tendentiously by everybody, that this is a matter of discovering what the whole people want in the circumstances of the full decision, the cost of that decision, after due argument, and after that majority is discovered by persuasion of people as to what they think is right or wrong on it. An argument for the simultaneous rebroadcasting of whichever programmes may be chosen to be rebroadcast; I would like to say that as regards the whole question fo Northern policy, of reconciliation of this State with those who are not in this State and yet are on this island, I am not satisfied that if there were fruits to be garnered from this type of sowing, they would be quickly garnered, and I would be conservative, which is to say pessimistic and dismal, in my anticipation of resluts from that. I attach a good deal of improtance to the point that the Minister made with regard to the sense of injustice that might arise from a positive decision not to go on and provide those outside Dublin and the east with what they — let us assume — want.

For me, to hear said, who have long thought about Ireland — that was that the greatest single enduring division in the country, in the State, at any rate is really the Pale and outside the Pale, confirmed in this extraordinary way by the natural overspill of UK television, broadly speaking, running along the Pale too, is remarkable. I attach a great deal of importance to this. It is because I attach importance to this that, at the end of the day, I would be left in doubt as to what I would finally decide with regard to this. I would have to make an assessment of this which I am at present, and perhaps forever unable to make. A lot of the feeling I have about much of the discussion in regard to section 6 is not to be attributed to the fact that, quite honestly, I have the very greatest doubt. You know, this is new technology; even if we all decided we were going to do all that rational men should do to circumscribe it, this is technology which is affecting the people. The obviously sensible thing to do would be to accept it.

I discount in my own mind a lot of my criticisms as I formulate them of any extension of television. To be honest I doubt the reality. This is as much a commentary on the extension of a new channel of RTE as it is on a rebroadcasting. What is the reality of choice which exists? How is the human life improved by being able to switch from one station to another? Maybe the best thing for that person in that house would be to turn the damn thing off altogether.

Incidentally, perhaps, I should say that I am not in the mult-channel area though I live in Ballsbridge. I live in a house which, blessed by an obstinate neighbour, who has not been identified, who will not allow piped television to pass through his garden, as a result of which——

Mr. Lenihan

That is exactly my point.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

If there are benefits to flow from the rebroadcasting, I am among those who will see the consequences and enjoy the benefits——

Mr. Lenihan

It is not a State imposition; it is a private right. I was saying that this morning, in answer to a lot of pressure.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

I was not thinking of it on that level, I was merely saying that, on the question as to whether I was affected by the fact that I sat down every evening, fat and glorious, and switched from here to there and then fell fast asleep, or whatever one does, if that is one's situation, I do not do that. I just have one channel. It would be to discount my contributions even more were I to tell how often I looked at that channel.

With regard to this whole question of the relationship; on the question, on the decision; on the question of whether a direction shoud be given, we have had the very important question of cost mentioned. Senator Ahern mentioned it. I imagine it must be present in the Minister's mind, a member of any cabinet. An aspect of this — I do not know whether it has been mentioned — to which I attach importance is this; it is crucial to this whole question of freedom; I think it was in 1972 somebody made a calculation that, of the 132 members there were then in the United Nations, only one-fifth enjoyed free receipt of information. Therefore, in so far as we are in that situation, we are — taking the world — a small island enjoying freedom. The preservation of that freedom is very important. On the whole, though there have been criticisms from that party, and from this side, about the operation of RTE, on the whole, I do not think people have found it unfairly operated. On the whole, it has been a good thing on the political level — whether television be a good thing or not — in balancing power in relation to any given Government. That has been a good thing. What I do fear; what I would like the Minister to think about before any direction were given and, as the Minister has said, this is an enabling section only and perhaps he may never wish to exercise the powers——

Mr. Lenihan

A very powerful one.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

God knows, the statute books are full of sections enabling Governments that had long stretches of power to do lots of things they never did, or perhaps, chose never to do, or were inattentive in doing.

Mr. E. Ryan

You can never rely on them.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

There are enabling sections all over the statute books; if the Senator would give me half an hour, I could come up with a half a dozen for him but that would be a liberty for me to claim. This is an enabling section. Before considering whether the ability being given to him he will choose to exercise, I would think he ought consider the long-term effect on the independence of this body of RTE of having to go annually to the Government. There should be a long term projection of what will be the consequences of whatever may be the decision; whether to rebroadcast this, that or the other set of programmes, or have a second channel or an independent authority which, of course, is a variant on this thing. There are a couple of variants on this; one can have either RTE looking after the whole business with the kind of cry from Cork that Dublin is selecting what Cork may look at, or one can have a division of RTE charged with this business of selecting, independent of the other division, or one can have an independent body doing it.

Mr. Lenihan

That would be excellent.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

I am sure Senator Lenihan will agree. I shall probably discover he has anticipated me in what he said but unfortunately, owing to the occupations I follow, I was unable to listen to him. Whatever decision one makes, whether it is to be RTE as it is; RTE divided into divisons, or a new RTE something, or rebroadcasting — these are all different courses which can be followed — all these courses should hae some potential projections of economic and financial cost in relation to the community. What I do think the Minister ought to think about; I know it is his subject and I am not saying it because Dr. Conor Cruise-O'Brien is seated in this chair, he knows that I believe this; I know it is central to his interests; that is, the whole question of liberty — God knows how he will define it — but in its best understood sense. If the Authority is going to be dependent, as it has not been as I understand it, on annual subventions, this is a very important consequence which should affect very materially the decision which is to be made on this matte. I am sure the Minister knows far more about it than I do but I do understand that in the past year the Director General of the French television ORTF resigned after three months holding the office because the National Assembly Finance Committee refused to approve of the budget for ORTF.

He stated — and this is reasonably authoritatively reported — that before he resigned he had been told by the Minister for Information that if he did not sack certain senior people in ORTF because of their alleged Leftist sympathies, he would not get his money. He resigned, which was very embarrassing for them all. I imagine they have done something about that. We do not want that sort of situation no matter who is in government.

Mr. Lenihan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

Assuming, for example, that that was the possible consequence of television pouring over from satellites, or whatever — the day that may come irrespective of whatever we do —

Mr. Lenihan

That is why we put down an amendment yesterday.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

We may have to think of setting up some type of relationship, financially, between the Exchequer and RTE which would mean they would not have to come for votes. Senator E. Ryan probably knows a damned sight more that I do about how the budgetary thing operates. But I think one can get things that are a charge against the Central Fund by virtue of fundamental acts. If one looks at our Finance Bill every year, we have covenants to repay deficits that arose in the past on the current budget. I do not know whether one can set up such a formal commitment. It would be an absolutely major thing for a Government which, after all, would always be dependent on what the Oireachtas would do, because any Act of that kind could be repealed. It would involve such a formal, grave and important decision that, really, it would not be done because of all the trouble that would result. Whoever the devil were in RTE would have that degree of independence of whoever the devil was in Government, if I may put it in that form. I attach importance to that.

Having mentioned the question of television generally, I said on the Second Reading — and hopefully it relates to the section on which I am addressing the House — we have had whatever number of years it is, 15, 16, or 17 years of television reception here. I know it is late in the day to be inviting the Minister to consider this, but he might cast a burden of research on the Authority seriously to see what is the effect of all of this — what types of programmes have deleterious effects. One does not want to be solemn about the programmes because, if there is tragedy, there is comedy also. As Byron said:

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,

Sermons and soda-water the day after.

Therefore, I am not to be seen as assuming that television is to be operated to teach us all how to understand what other people are talking about when they are using a language. Being myself a preoccupied monoglot I am encouraged by the Minister's suggestion that there were other people in the single-channel area who might need the assistance of subtitles, on films produced in different countries.

Television, whatever way is the balance, does have its effect. There are very important questions here affecting the — I hesitate to use the word. The trouble about "values" is that too many references to "values" devalue "values". We shall all have to get together and invent a new set of words to deal with all of this because it is almost impossible to talk about real things, like the quality of life, if the quality of life is being used every Tuesday by every type of scoundrel, which is not to say that everybody who uses it is a scoundrel. The real contribution to building up this people to do the things this people can do, with the record of achievement that this people has, a record which I think we altogether underrate, which is not merely to be found in the achievement, politically, of this State — to which the Minister referred in some speech — which I have long thought about, but is to be found also in the fact that that came, uniquely of the peoples of western Europe, after we had sent forth 120 years ago our bravest and best and left behind the shreds who now occupy these Houses. Yet these shreds have managed to go through a civil war, come together, govern the country with considerable good sense and has had a political achievement of some significance. The people who went off did much, too. What would be the history of America, Australia or New Zealand without them? We all shrink away from the truths there may be in relation to all that because of the rhetoric we heard in the past which did conceal some truths.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The quite recent past.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

Perhaps when I should have been here. Irrespective of the rhetoric, it is real.

We were down on our feet and we came up. The Catholic Church in this country made an amazing recovery in nineteenth century in missionary business. All that is an Irish achievement even if on that kind of level. With this behind us we should be carefully considering what can we do to make us go forward from here to do better things. The Minister's attention has been preoccupied on the whole since he went into Government, indeed earlier, and rightly so, with problems of reconciliation — and he has done a great deal of good in relation to that — and of clarification of what it is necessary for this community to do to maintain the State which came into existence for the sake of life — what is the phrase? — and which continues to exist for the sake of the good life. I invite the Minister to move on from the preservation of the State which exists for the sake of life and to give consideration to what structures we need, which include the whole business of communication to better the lives of our people?

Mr. Lenihan

BBC pop is the answer.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

I would end with one small point. It struck me there is a small amendment which the Minister might think would be appropriate to make on Report Stage in relation to this current affair, that is to say, direction or not, second channel or not, rebroadcasting or not. There is an express prohibition in the Bill against the Authority expressing their own views. It seems to me there ought to be some provision in our code which would entitle the Authority to express their own views, maybe reasonably, after ministerial approval or something of that kind. It seems to me that they would be in a difficulty standing up and howling on the subject of their views on an issue if they are prohibited from expressing them. There ought to be some procedure or mechanism whereby they could express them —

Mr. Lenihan

Very sensible indeed.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

——and be entirely orderly in doing so. On the question of the amendment now being discussed, the House knows my attitude.

An Cathaoirleach

The section is being discussed.

Mr. Lenihan

The Chair is in order.

An Cathaoirleach

The Seanad has been many hours now discussing the question: "That section 6, as amended, stand part of the Bill". The fact that Senators give notice that they oppose the section is merely the giving of such notice, it is not an amendment. Senators should take it that the fact that the Order Paper has been——

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

Let us give praise to the Cathaoirleach.

An Cathaoirleach

Give praise to those who are responsible for preparing the Order Paper in the correct manner.

Mr. E. Ryan

We have had a number of interesting speeches pointing out the danger to our national interests, culture and our way of life by rebroadcasting BBC 1 or one of the English channels. The cumulative impact of one British programme would undoubtedly have some effect on our outlook about certain important matters to us as Irish people. I do not think that anyone suggested we should have only a local programme, produced in this country. No one advocated a parochial view about programmes. The trouble with the Minister's proposal—in so far as we know exactly what he wants to do but assuming that he would like to have BBC 1 on the second channel—is that he is in a sense being parochial. The only difference is that he is merely saying that we would be committed to move from our own parish to the neighbouring parish. We would be permitted not only to hear programmes produced in this parish but we would be allowed to move just one step to the side and listen to programmes from the adjoining parish, but no further than that. That seems to be parochialism. Perhaps we could call it parochialism once removed. It is not really much of an improvement on the situation where we merely have our own local programme.

It is not much use advocating from the broadcasting view that we should open our window to the world to find that we are merely looking into our neighbour's house. It is difficult to understand the limited approach which the Minister is proposing in extending the type of programmes which people should be able to look at. It is particularly difficult to understand this point of view, when we have the duties of the Authority in section 13 specifically restated:

In performing its functions the Authority shall in its programming—

(a) be responsive to the interests and concerns of the whole community, be mindful of the need for understanding and peace within the whole island of Ireland, ensure that the programmes reflect the varied elements which make up the culture of the people of the whole island of Ireland, and have special regard for the elements which distinguish that culture and in particular for the Irish language,

(b) uphold the democratic values enshrined in the Constitution, and

(c) have regard to the desirability of promoting understanding of the values and traditions of countries other than the State, including in particular the values and traditions of such countries which are members of the European Economic Community.

Here we have a situation where the Authority is specifically instructed that its duty is to have programmes which will have regard to promoting understanding and of the values and traditions of the EEC countries, which certainly include the Continental countries of Italy, France, Germany and so on, and which might not include the country to which the Minister is proposing to hand over the second channel. He proposes to hand it over to the BBC when we do not even know whether they will be included in the EEC. We will have our national programme on the one hand and our second channel on the other hand devoted exclusively to the BBC. How can we expect RTE to have regard to the values and traditions of the European members of the EEC when one half of it is devoted to the United Kingdom and the home programmes would have to be necessarily devoted very largely to programmes of particular concern to this country?

It is rather inconsistent for the Minister to put in this Bill emphasis on programmes which would promote understanding of EEC countries while proposing to hand over half our broadcasting time to the one country which may not be in the EEC at all. But we will know that later on this evening.

The other point I want to make is that the Minister, in response to the accusations by Senator Lenihan that we were handing over one of our two channels entirely to the BBC, said that we were not handing over control, that he had the ultimate control and that he could always, as it were, switch it off, he could always tell the Authority that the experiment of having BBC 1 had not worked out very well and he could terminate it.

Looking at the wording of the section I have some doubt whether the Minister has the power he thinks he has. He undoubtedly has the power to direct the Authority to rebroadcast BBC 1. I can I have some doubt whether he has power to stop rebroadcasting BBC 1. I can envisage a situation in the future when the Minister has bullied the Authority into rebroadcasting BBC 1 and they can get their own back on him when he decides it has not been a successful experiment, by saying that they will not switch it off. The Minister undoubtedly has power to direct them to rebroadcast BBC 1, but he does not have any power under that section to tell them to stop rebroadcasting BBC 1. It is a point which may not be correct, but it is open to doubt on the wording of the section whether the Minister can tell the Authority to stop doing it.

Mr. Boland

I am in competition with Senator Alexis FitzGerald for the short amount of time that I spend in any one week watching television. I often think when I hear people in the Oireachtas debating the pros and cons of Telefís Éireann and the broadcasting system generally, that in many ways we are the least fitted to do so. Because of the nature of our public duties, we get less opportunity to watch television than most members of the general public. Yet whenever the annual Estimate for Posts and Telegraphs comes along in the other House, or the rarer opportunity such as this presents itself in this House, we are all inclined to set ourselves up as being absolute experts and possible contenders for the position of Controller of Programmes, whenever it again might arise.

With all our flaws, part of our duty is to give our opinions. In that context, perhaps the opinion that I am going to give now might not be as acceptable to some of my colleagues as they might have expected. I am less than convinced, having listened to all the arguments presented, that the simple solution to this question is the taking of any one other channel and rebroadcasting it in its entirety. It is obvious that those who are in areas other than the multi-channel area want to get some other programme. Because the other programmes they know being received in the multi-channel areas are from three or four British channels, when they talk about wanting a choice of programmes they would like to get BBC 1, BBC 2, UTV or HTV. It might not be too long, if they had the complete range of these other channels to choose from, before they got just as sick of those programmes as they confess to be of Telefís Éireann. It is probably a quirk of human nature that no matter what is broadcast, being laymen, we all want to be experts and criticise the programmes. If, let us say, BBC 1 was broadcast in its entirety, it would not be long before the people in the existing single-channel area were as critical of it as they appear to be of Telefís at present. When they say they want a choice that is exactly what they mean. The only choice they know of at present is that which exists in Dublin, and in the eastern and northern counties, between Telefís Éireann and the British broadcasting channels.

I would be just as unimpressed at the idea of our broadcasting CBS, ABC or French Broadcasting in its entirety as I am of broadcasting one or other of the British channels. I do not think the way to satisfy choice of the people of any one country is to take one of the broadcasting channels of another country and present it in its entirety. In my opinion that is not the solution. There would be something wrong in a situation where all of one other channel was taken and broadcast to the Irish people, without allowing some people involved in television production or presentation, some form of discretionary power, without having a situation where some Irishmen, have the right to collate a choice of various programmes broadcast by other channels and present them as an alternative to RTE 1. I get the impression that that is not what is envisaged at present. All in multi-channel areas will remember the time BBC 2 arrived on the scene.

It would be fair to say, and I am sure the Minister would agree, that the BBC service improved radically from the time the second channel arrived. It allowed the British Broadcasting Corporation the opportunity to present on the second channel programmes that might not always have as wide a popular appeal as some of the films or dramas produced. At the same time, the other programmes did have a definite audience and had a right to be broadcast.

It would be a pity if we go to the considerable expense of having the facility of a second channel, and bringing about the situation whereby Telefís Éireann did not have that opportunity also. For instance, I am a follower of sport but many people are not. It would be a pity if Telefís Éireann were to be criticised for showing racing from the Curragh on a Saturday afternoon and not showing something which might be of more popular appeal to the housewife which could easily be shown on the second channel but were not given that opportunity because the second channel was confined to let, us say, BBC 2 showing some discussion on the preservation of the Roman Wall in Britain. It would be unfair if that opportunity was denied to Telefís Éireann.

If we are to have a second channel we should give the people in the single-channel area what they need—the best of the alternative channels in Britain. If we are going to go to the expense of providing a second service we should also be able to provide the best of those other channels being broadcast and received in many parts of this country, combined with, initially at least on an occasional basis, some home-produced programmes. Obviously, for instance, the sort of programmes I have mentioned, the outside broadcast units' coverage of sport, could be broadcast on the second channel leaving the main channel open to the wider viewing audience. Showing sport would give great delight to people in many parts of the country who are unable to see that sport.

The second channel could often be used to broadcast long debates of interesting public importance but which might not be of such wide appeal as some of the channed programmes which the mass audience might want to see. They would serve a useful purpose by being broadcast. It would be a pity if that opportunity was to be denied by the complete broadcasting of a discussion emanating from Britain, France or America on a subject that was of interest to that country but not here.

If that sort of situation was allowed to develop, Telefís Éireann could use the second channel to show some of their home produced programmes in conjunction with programmes taken in from abroad. RTE should be given an opportunity to develop a full second channel on a gradual basis. The people then would very easily and very quickly give their verdict on how they felt about that situation.

Telefís Éireann to a large extent gear their programmes in accordance with the published TAM weekly ratings. If a programme does not achieve a high position in the ratings it is either dropped or recast to a different part of the schedule. It may be an interesting and good programme, but eventually if it does not command a high viewing audience it is dropped. If they had a second channel they could perhaps broadcast that interesting and useful programme on the second channel. No matter what TAM rating is taken among the Irish people about a second channel being broadcast in its entirety from another country and relayed here to our homes the Irish people's TAM ratings would have no influence whatsoever on the content of what goes out from that second channel. We could end up with many of the programmes on the second channel being of little, even marginal, interest to the Irish people. I have already privately told one of my colleagues that I do not believe that BBC 1 was the second channel to be chosen. I do not, for instance, believe that the people in the Dingle Peninsula would be at all interested on a Sunday morning in having classes in Pakistani Hindustani. Without seeking to condemn or denagrate the BBC—I believe they are an excellent service and probably one of the finest broadcasting corporations in the world—they are in essence the British Broadcasting Corporation doing a very fine job providing a very wide range of services for the British. They have many programmes that are obviously of interest to the Irish people, as have the Independent Television Authority in Britain, the public channels in the United States and other services throughout Europe. It would be a pity if we were to go overboard in the selection of one channel or the other because parts of the country are able to avail of that channel at present. We would be far better off to consider a mixture of the various BBC and ITA channels, together with, initially, a small content of home produced programmes. If the Irish people, by way of TAM rating or otherwise, indicated that they preferred those Irish programmes, then they could be expanded and the amount of time devoted to them and the amount of money that was assigned to their production increased.

This is a unique opportunity. Much of what is broadcast on the other three or four channels is of little or no interest to us. People in the multi-channel areas switch them off at present. There is an opportunity now of broadcasting one other channel to the rest of the island, and surely the thing to do is to allow a group of people who are expert in their field, select what is best from each of those three or four channels and combine them with home produced programmes so as to provide a real alternative to Telefís Éireann. If Telefís Éireann is as bad as many people think, then the second channel is the one that will be most widely watched. Very quickly a balance will be struck and the second channel could very often be used for the production of events such as I have mentioned that would be condemned out of hand if they were screened on Telefís Éireann because of their low viewing appeal but would be quite acceptable on the second channel.

I very often watch a complete English county cricket match on BBC 2. I am sure there are not many people in Ireland who would be interested in watching that programme. That type of lower viewing audience programme is still useful, entertaining and worthwhile to the people involved and could be shown if the home station were allowed some opportunity of participating in the amount of broadcasting time on the second channel.

The difficulty and annoyance in debating this Bill is that there have been so many emotional and, let us say, invisible charges levelled at the Minister, and the ideas he forwards inviting genuine comment in an effort to ascertain what would be best for the Irish people; what they want most and what would be best from the point of view of Telefís Éireann and of everybody. Instead of participation in a useful way, and instead of people giving genuine views on the matter, we have had the whole idea of RTE 2 versus the other channels or of Telefís Éireann versus all other comers transferred into a highly charged emotional political situation. That is very unfair, very unfortunate and might well result in a decision being taken which might not be for the best and might be brought about because of the silly Dr. Goebbels-type allegations and insinuations that were levelled here yesterday. That type of thing is doing nothing towards getting a consensus opinion as to what ought to be done.

Remember this, we are talking now about a second channel. We had the first one for 15 or 16 years, so whatever is decided it is probably going to apply for a long time to come. It is unfortunate if many tens of thousands of Irish people for years to come are going to be provided or not provided with some sort of a service because of this emotion-charged debate and the political charges and insinuations that have been made here and elsewhere. I appeal to everyone who is contributing to this debate and to this very important matter to keep this in mind. We cannot afford to under-estimate the influence that television has for good or for bad, whether we like it or not. Television has an enormous influence and a persuasive power, and conditions people's minds. It would be unfortunate if we came to a wrong decision or did not speak our minds fairly or honestly on this important and far-reaching matter.

The Minister has gone a long way towards recognising the various viewpoints involved by accepting, as he did yesterday, Senator West's amendment. That, to my mind, seemed to be an indication of his willingness to hear all sides and to give all sides an opportunity of presenting their points of view and in the event of his taking a particular line of action that the Oireachtas would have the opportunity of speaking about it at length. It is a pity that other people who participated in the debate so far have not shown that same willingness to co-operate.

Despite what I said, I support the section, as amended, because of the manner in which the Minister has met the points raised by Senator West.

Dr. West

Senator Boland has raised the tenor of the debate. I find it very difficult to speak immediately after him because he said so many things I wanted to say, and he said them better than I could. He has shown a very flexible and generous attitude. He has a very definite point of view which coincides with mine and I hope I can appeal to the Minister to treat the points that Senator Boland has just made and the points that I am going to try to make, which are entirely non-political, entirely in the spirit of doing whatever I can, however small, to find what is best for the people as a whole in relation to our own television service. I hope he will be magnaminous and take these very serious and entirely non-political and non-tendentious points of view into account. I also hope he will respond generously to the points Senator Boland and I am putting forward concerning the second channel.

I agree entirely with Senator Boland that the argument on this section has become clouded by political charges of one type or another, by resurgences of strong feelings, which I do not think really make any contribution to life or knowledge, and this is far too serious a matter to be considered on a party political basis. I hope I can take an independent stand which one's clearance from party affiliations gives one and try and talk about the development of our television service as I see it and as I see in the Minister's plan.

What worries me most about the proposal in this section, even the section as amended—and I pay tribute to the Minister for accepting an amendment which strengthens the power of the Oireachtas in any decision that has to be made—is that a decision to rebroadcast any foreign service on the second of our two national networks gravely weakens the position of our own service. That is why I am opposed to any such decision.

One might think from the actual mechanics of the amendment and the various processes that have been gone through that all the options are open, that no real decisions have been taken and that we still have an opportunity, as we have had for a considerable period of time, to consider this in the national interest. I felt from the discussion in the media which preceded this debate, and from the reactions the Minister has given us, that he has made up his mind and that his personal decision would be to rebroadcast BBC 1. I may be entirely wrong; I hope I am.

In terms of political reality, it will be the present Minister's decision. It does not look at the moment as if somebody is going to call a general election. There could be a crisis in the short term. We could face an economic crisis which could disturb the status quo. We could face a crisis over Northern Ireland. Senator Halligan and I might even rock the Government's boat by breaking the link with sterling, but it does not look as if any of these things will happen in the short term. It seems to me that the present Government are in a strong enough position to give the Minister a long enough run as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to enable him to implement any decision that is made under this section. I hope he will not consider the political charges that have been made in anything but a lighthearted way and that he will look at this whole problem of the second channel in the widest sense and indeed, of course, in the national interest.

I do not think that the broadcasting of BBC 1 throughout the country would do any cultural damage. I am not the person to judge; it is impossible to make a judgement; it is one of the problems we talked about already and, as Senator Boland said, we are all making ourselves out to be experts. Will it do any good or will it do any harm? My feeling is that it might do a minimal amount of good and that it would not do very much harm.

I made the belated suggestion to the Minister that it occurs to me that when one looks at the multi-channel areas— that covers about half our population— and then look at the people who are charged in the Special Criminal Court, many of whom are very young and had they been living in multi-channel areas and have had British services broadcast to them all their lives, is there any indication that those viewing in multi-channel areas are any less anti-British than people in other parts of the country? My guess is no. Many who appear before the courts live in multi-channel areas and have permanent residences. I do not mean the transients who appear around Dundalk and near the Border. This is a small indication that receiving British programmes does not necessarily make the recipients any more favourable towards Britain than they might otherwise be.

We cannot decide what effect television channels have. All we can say is there is an effect, but it is almost impossible to quantify it. The most important influence on any commercial channel are the advertisements and the sense of values portrayed by the advertisements, which is that self-satisfaction is the chief end of man. We get this flashed at us every quarter of an hour irrespective of what the programme is about.

McLuhan has made a preliminary excursion into the problem of the effects of the media and he says "The medium is the message." This would reinforce my view about the sense of values, and irrespective of what the quality of the programmes was, a commercial station could tend to make people more materialistic because of the constant advertisements. That is as far as I would go in my personal judgement.

I think the Minister genuinely believes that there are strong cultural reasons for rebroadcasting BBC 1 and I should like him, when he is replying to the debate on this section, to give these reasons. His reasons might be of a stronger persuasive power to me if more of the programmes of BBC Northern Ireland or UTV were actually produced in Northern Ireland. A very small proportion of them are produced there. The Broadcasting Review Committee in 1974 in their report suggest, on page 70, section 12.18:

evidence was submitted to the Committee that only about 4% of the contents of BBC, Northern Ireland, originates in Northern Ireland; the only information available to the Committee with regard to UTV is contained in an article in The Irish Times of 9 March, 1974, where the percentage was indicated as being about 6%.

These figures may not be accurate but at least they give us some idea of the amount of material actually produced in Northern Ireland. I would have no qualms about entirely rebroadcasting any service that was produced in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Yeats

Hear, hear.

Dr. West

I would totally support the Minister if his intention was to do this but it is a whole different ball game when you are talking about the service that is 96 per cent or 94 per cent produced in London. The political reasons must be obvious.

What worries me most about the decision the Minister might make is the way it will affect our own service. That is my objection to this whole business. I think we have a marvellous opportunity with the second channel of developing our own television service. No argument will persuade me that if we use the second channel to broadcast a British service then our own service will not run down and deteriorate. The Minister may give guarantees about financial subventions. Any financial guarantee is something that is decided annually in conjunction with the Minister for Finance. For the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to give a financial guarantee is something I would take with a grain of salt. In any case, it is hard to know what level of finance is needed to support and bolster our own service.

I live in a single-channel area and I see only RTE. I sometimes think it is good and sometimes I think it is very poor. I think it reflects our own voices. There are often peculiarly Irish programmes but it is an Irish service. At least when something good is produced one feels proud of it. When something bad comes up one feels rather ashamed. Of course these are all value judgments. Having seen BBC on occasions I think BBC is the best broadcasting service in the world. It is a British service so I do not feel proud when something good comes on or ashamed when something bad comes on. I think Irish viewers should feel something about the national service that they are watching.

We have a marvellous opportunity in establishing a second channel to develop our own television service and to widen its scope and give the undoubted creative talents which the people of this country have a chance to be put into effect. A second channel, as Senator Boland has said, gives a choice to the people who are arranging the programmes. The problems of broadcasting another service which we have no control over do nothing to develop our own service. We here have a duty to develop our own service. I think if we do not take this opportunity we are failing as legislators. That is my great objection to this section.

I wish to quote in support of this argument some sections from the Broadcasting Review Committee's Report, 1974, which seems to have been almost entirely overlooked in this whole debate. The committee included many distinguished Irishmen and women, and I do not place people automatically by political or party affiliations. As an Independent, one does not look for these sort of things. There were a number of distinguished people on this committee headed by Mr. Justice Murnaghan: Dr. Donal Caird, Bishop of Limerick, Rev. Donal Hurley, Bishop of Ferns, Brian McMahon, Donal Nevin, Dr. T.J. Whitaker. These people, I would suggest, were able to rise above party considerations and would have been looking at this problem with the national interest firmly in mind. Their findings are totally in favour of keeping the second channel in Irish hands. I quote from page 70, paragraph 12.20:

The availability of British services to all Irish viewers, supported as these services are by vastly greater financial resources, could have a damaging effect on the morale of the Irish service. For its proper development, including essential growth of confidence and the progressive evolution of a distinctive style, RTE needs a second channel to enable it to provide a comprehensive and balanced service. To expose RTE to unequal competition from outside the country and at the same time effectively remove all reasonable hope of its ever having its own second channel could engender discouragement and progressive decline.

That is in a nutshell what I feel about the proposals to rebroadcast a British service. I will quote a couple of other sections because they say much more eloquently than I can exactly what I feel. I will quote paragraphs 12.24 and 12.25 as follows:

12.24 The broadcasting service is a vitally important medium for the expression of the country's culture in all its aspects. It is a proving-ground and a means of development for the community's artistic and literary talent and an essential means of enabling the community to benefit from productions catering primarily for the national audience. As an extension of this principle the idea of increasing the community's participation in its own broadcasting service has come to be looked on as of growing importance throughout the world. The virtual death of a national broadcasting service would have serious ill-effects on the well-being of the country's cultural life and would be a negation of the principle of developing community participation in broadcasting.

12.25 The effective removal of the necessary support of RTE would lead to a reduction of the interest in and love for the country's history and heritage. The country would be transformed in spirit and reality into a provincial region of Britain. This would be particularly unfortunate in the context of the distinctive cultural contribution which Ireland has the capacity to make within the European Economic Community.

It is very significant that a distinguished review committee should unanimously come out in favour of keeping this second channel in our own hands. I should like the Minister to take that report into account. I think it expresses national feelings to a large extent. Those were people who were able to look above the menial things of everyday life and see how the country is developing.

If we do not take this opportunity to develop our second channel then we will have essentially for all time stunted the development of RTE. That is really what we should be talking about here.

As Senator Boland very eloquently pointed out, there are many programmes on BBC 1 which will not be of interest to anybody. Since we are talking about BBC 1 and since BBC 1 seems to be the possibility looming on the horizon, we ought to face the fact that the whole situation in Britain has changed since BBC 1 and BBC 2 have come on the air. Evidently BBC 1 is by degrees becoming the light programme of British television and the better, the minority appeal, the more cultural, artistic programmes, the higher-class programmes, are being moved to BBC 2. That is what BBC 2 is designed for. It gives them more scope to run a popular lower level programme on BBC 1 and the higher level, perhaps minority viewing, programmes on BBC 2.

This change will accelerate as time goes on. If we decide to rebroadcast BBC 1, even in 18 months' time, when the first signals come through the second channel, it could have changed its character dramatically from what it is today. It has changed its character considerably since the advent of BBC 2 and it will change its character even further. We will have absolutely no influence on the sort of programme that we are going to broadcast on our national network. We could end up getting the pop television station in Britain. We could have television's answer to Radio Caroline coming over on BBC 1. This will not suit us now and it could suit us even less as time goes on.

As Senator Lenihan pointed out this morning, and Senator Boland pointed out just now, if we get the choice of programmes in our own hands we would have the opportunity of selecting programmes from BBC 1 and BBC 2 and be able to strike a balance. We could make the adjustment and change the balance appropriately. We could select programmes from Independent Television, from BBC television, from American or Canadian television and it would give the people designing programmes on RTE a whole new scope, a whole new panorama to work on.

If we were to rebroadcast another service on our national network it just cuts them down, restricts them even more than they are restricted at the moment. They can run minority programmes because they are not up against BBC or ITV and they are not competing for the audience all the time as they would be if we rebroadcast on our second network.

All the arguments to me, as an Irishman and as a legislator, are in favour of keeping our second channel in our own control. If we are to develop our own talents then this is our opportunity and if we throw it away, whatever anybody says it will not be a simple matter of switching off a tap and running our own show. We should do what Senator Yeats said. We should run our own show and if it turns out to be a disaster then we can do something about rebroadcasting another channel.

I would hope that on a second channel controlled in Ireland there would be some Irish programmes. There would be the possibility of switching things from one channel to another. We could have a sort of BBC 1 and BBC 2 set-up. We could have the more popular programmes on the one channel and then on RTE 2 we could have the sort of programmes that would not have such a wide popular audience.

Senator Boland talked about watching county cricket, which is one of the things I like to do. I would not expect to see that very often on RTE. I can watch soccer on BBC 1 but the rugby is on BBC 2. They are games which are both very popular in this country and I am sure there would be a considerable demand for programmes on both, but the main soccer programme, "Match of the Day" is on BBC 1 and "Rugby Special" is on BBC 2. One could dovetail these in quite easily, if one had control over two programmes, with our national games, but our national games, the Gaelic games, could come off very badly even though they have a big viewing public: they will certainly be squeezed by the fact that on the BBC channel there is soccer, which is a male audience game.

All the arguments point overwhelmingly in favour of retaining the choice, being able to give the people the choice by retaining the control here. After all, it is up to us as legislators to make decisions. It is right that the decision should be in Government hands. It is too serious a matter to leave to any body of people, whether they are professional television people or not. It is up to the legislators to make the choice. It is a simple solution to say: "Okay, we will broadcast the service which is good and which a number of people in Ireland already get."

That is the simple mechanics of the things. If the Government were keen on developing RTE, as they should be, a certain amount of selling would have to be done. The Government, in conjunction with the Opposition, would have to go out and sell this to the people. They would have to persuade them that this is the right thing to do. Governments do not always take popular decisions. That is not what they are there for. They are there to take the right decisions. Their job is to persuade the people that their decision is right. A Government decision to have a second Irish channel would receive support across the board if it were sold if the issues were put fairly and clearly to the people.

There has been a tremendous amount of confusion in this whole debate. I would ask the Minister to think about this again. I have spoken about the political considerations, but they weigh lightly in comparison to any failure to develop our own television service. It would be a rather extraordinary step if we handed over our second channel to the BBC. Our political interests diverge greatly from Britain. Broadcasting a British station would not do us very much harm. Our political interests diverge, but what worries me is that rebroadcasting a British channel on our national network means a surrender of sovereignty, as I see it. It is all right to say that we can stop at any time we like, but that is much more easily said than done. It costs a great deal in terms of votes to the Government of the day.

The Minister knows that once this thing starts it will not just be a simple matter of stopping it. I would urge him very strongly to take the feelings of people—particularly the feelings of people like Senator Boland who spoke very bravely from the Government side about it—he obviously feels very strongly about it—into account. We represent a spectrum of opinion. We have shown that we do not all agree. We are connected with the parties. We try in our contributions here to keep the national interest firmly in our minds. We sometimes get a bit carried away by our own liberalism but that is not a bad thing.

I would ask the Minister very seriously, with the best motives in mind and in the national interest, to look again at this question. Inevitably, our television service will be stunted if we do not develop a second channel ourselves and give our own television people the opportunity of making the choice. I am not impressed with the constant shouting from one side of the House: "It is the will of the people. Give the people what they want." That seems to me to be just as far from the mark as the talk about Dr. Goebbels and that sort of nonsense.

The point about any Government decision is that it is often unpopular with a great many people, but Governments are there to govern. They are not there to follow the people; they are there to lead them. They have often to take decisions, as the Minister knows, which will be unpopular with a lot of people. Then they have to go out and sell those decisions The point is that we, as legislators, are meant to rise somewhat above the lowest common denominator. We are meant to keep the national interest firmly in our minds. If we do not develop the second channel ourselves, we are failing to do this.

Mr. Kilbride

The question of whether this section as amended should stand part of the Bill has given rise to a considerable amount of debate. The extent to which people opposite went out of their way to present the whole exercise as a sell-out to the British nationally and culturally beggars description. It is extraordinary that Senators who live nearest to the area and who have the greatest opportunity of being contaminated, if that were possible, by looking at BBC 1— Senators from the northern part of the country, Senator McGlinchey, Senator Dolan, Senator Brennan and Senator McGowan — should have developed such an extremely prejudiced opposition to the opportunity being given to people in other parts of the country, where BBC 1 is not available, to look at the programmes they can see by switching on the television any day in the week.

If there were any reason why I might be persuaded to vote against this section it would be that the people who would have the opportunity of looking at the new channel might develop the same sort of outlook as the Senators I referred to. In other words, it would produce a prejudiced, narrow-minded attitude. If we look with a broad mind, dispassionately and fairly, at the advance of the Irish people in the past 15 to 20 years we will realise that some of the things that have been said across the floor are, perhaps, correct; that the whole scene, in relation to the BBC, has changed. It certainly has. The British to whom Senator Lenihan saw fit to refer to as "big brothers", are no longer representative of the wily old lion with the paw ever ready to exploit this small insignificant nation. We do not need to protect ourselves from their influence.

The British are a member of the EEC. Today in no uncertain way, they opted to take their place in that society of which we are an equal partner. They are our nearest neighbour. They have a particular association with us inasmuch as that a considerable section of the people who rightfully belong to this nation, who should be within this State, have an allegiance to them. Consequently, whatever programme is broadcast in the area that is not within the jurisdiction of the State should not be anathema to us.

We have come far enough and we are cultured enough to recognise that our own national sentiments would not be tarnished by looking at any film, whether it was British, or French, or any other nationality. Three-fifths of the Irish people are open to whatever influence BBC 1 have on us. The other two-fifths are not open to that influence. These three-fifths are regarded as having the ability to discern between the good and the bad, to discern between nationalism and colonialism, and having such a spinal calibre as to be able to stand up to it, and the other two-fifths are not. The reality is that, if Fianna Fáil were on these benches, and if they were the Government of the day, they would be doing the same as this Government.

Mr. Yeats

No.

Mr. Kilbride

The Fianna Fáil feelings in regard to this exercise are the same as the feelings they expressed in regard to British airwaves coming in here at one time, as they expressed in regard to a Russian Embassy at one time. Yet they made agreements with both these nations and had commercial associations with them and they actually claim credit today for these arrangements. If this Government were exercising the functions Fianna Fáil exercised at that time, they would be shouting in the very same way as they are shouting about this Bill. Our attitude should be an example to those who are narrow-minded and others who are the victims of narrow-minded people. We should be seen to be broad-minded enough to recognise that our nearest neighbour is not our enemy today. We should show our brethern in the North that we are a tolerant considerate people whom they could think well of being associated with.

What I heard from the Fianna Fáil benches indicates that we are narrow-minded, selfish and bigoted. These are not the traits or characteristics which are appropriate to the people of this country. I am satisfied that the younger generation are definitely setting their faces against that sort of outlook. They have put away the prejudices of the past. They are prepared to live in the present and in the realities of 1975 rather than the realities of 1875 or 1935. Pseudo-nationalism can be more damaging to a nation than the servile outlook of people who have not got the courage to stand up and recognise their own rights.

If Senator Boland and many other Senators had been present they would have heard the Minister state that he was prepared to give RTE a chance to produce a programme which measured up to the standards required by the Irish people, by the Authority, by the Minister and by the Government. People are asking for second, third or fourth programmes as alternatives to what we have. There is no reason why we cannot get them. The Government and the Minister are to be commended on providing this type of an alternative to the television service. The Minister is being misrepresented in the face of his categorical denial of allegations made right in front of his face. People are still asserting that he has power to direct the Authority to broadcast a certain programme but that he has not power to stop it. I suppose that is good enough for a political Opposition but I do not think it is the proper thinking for responsible public representatives. The Minister is divesting himself of some of the Draconian powers enjoyed by his predecessor.

Senator Brennan said we should have BBC 2 rather than BBC 1 or perhaps, a second channel here. Senator Garrett wanted to see sport, wrestling, and so on, on BBC 1. Senator Dolan said some good sections of the BBC 1 programmes were admissible and acceptable. Senator Lenihan said he had no objection to BBC 1 coming into every house in the country. If these are real expressions of what Fianna Fáil are thinking, they are coming very near to the thinking of the people. They are trying to utilise this opportunity to dub this Government and the Minister as reneging on their national responsibilities, selling out our national heritage, and endeavouring to enable the British to put propaganda to all the Irish people to the extent that we will be all so contaminated that we will lose our national identity.

The fact is that they know the Government and the Minister are being completely reasonable, rational, national-minded and responsible in this exercise. The powers the Minister has taken give him the right to dispense with whatever RTE offers in the first instance and to tell the Authority to broadcast BBC 1. He also has the right to tell them to take what is acceptable from other programmes. In other words, it is an example of a supreme Government exercising their supreme authority in the affairs of broadcasting. It is not in any sense a diminution of the national standards either cultural or otherwise. It is a full and responsible exercise of their authority in the best interests of the people in providing alternative channels or a second channel if that should be found appropriate.

The Minister deserves a lot of credit in this matter. While I recognise that it is the job of Opposition Senators to criticise and to apply the severest criteria in arriving at the attitude to be adopted, they should have a greater sense of responsibility with regard to the effect of their views on our Northern fellow countrymen. If we are holding out the hand of friendship to the people of Northern Ireland, the majority or minority section, we should not express ourselves in the terms in which Fianna Fáil Senators expressed themselves over the past few days during the discussion on this Bill. If we are to get these people to listen to us and to understand us, we will not do so with a scowl on our face, with the dagger drawn, and with the clenched fist ready to attack and assault. We must deal with this matter as a sovereign supreme Government.

This Government are fully alive to their responsibilities. Our image is important if we are to bring about the unity of this country. We must not ride high horses. We must not be the provocative, domineering, over-bearing, ready-for-fight type of people, if we are to win the goodwill of our fellow countrymen, the vast majority of whom are decent people like ourselves. We must be broadminded. We must be friendly. We must be prepared to listen to and to recognise some of their customs and to tolerate them. Otherwise we will not be able to live together.

I should like to finish on the note that the people of this country are entitled to get an alternative channel. The two-fifths who have not yet got a variety of programmes are entitled to it. That is what the Minister is giving them, and I hope he will be successful.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I should like to thank Senators who have contributed to this Stage of the debate and, in particular, those who have contributed to the shaping of amendments which, as many Senators have said, improve the section as it stands. That is the kind of thing I hoped would happen when I brought this Bill into the Seanad and I feel fully justified both by the amendments and by the general quality of the debate. Even on this section which tends to raise quite sincere emotions in some quarters and which, therefore, was a controversial section, the debate as a whole engendered more light than heat. There was some heat. Perhaps it is not entirely a bad thing that there should be some heat sometimes. It shows that there are real feelings there, that we are talking about real things about which real people care. Perhaps in my own reply from time to time heat will not be entirely absent, but I would hope that the element of light will still predominate.

I should like to say first that this section opens possibilities. It does not close them. The possibility it opens specifically is one, admittedly, which some people do not want to see open, that is, the rebroadcasting of an outside channel by direction of the Minister. It does not foreclose the possibility that that might not work out for one reason or another and that another course would be followed. One reason why it might not work out would be the legal and technical difficulties which do not look insuperable at the moment but, if they so prove, then it might not work out.

Another reason would be if it appeared that the people in the present single-channel area were, after all, attracted by coming to know more about the kind of concept of a second channel, an RTE edited second channel, which has been expounded here. It has been expounded very attractively and very well by a number of Senators. I would like to see those Senators go on television and broadcast and travel in the country and carry the message in which they believe. They will have time to do that. There will not be any sudden snap decisions on this matter. Of necessity, there will be time. It will be at least 18 months before the physical equipment for bringing this in is available. This will have to be debated here again. This, as I say, is a section which opens out possibilities, possibilities attractive to some, unattractive to others.

It has been suggested in various ways and in various keys, indeed, that this is a matter of my personal preference, that I think the people ought to have the BBC and thus it must be. If it were purely a matter of my personal preference, as it is not and should not be, I would rather prefer the kind of concept that has been expounded here of a sort of anthology of what hopefully would be the best. If the editor was the best, what he would edit would be the best. If he were not, it would be otherwise. Drawn from many sources, television of high quality—I would like that. I am not the only person to be considered here nor, frankly, are the the people in the multi-channel area mainly the people to be considered. I agree they ought to be considered. Of course they must be considered, but the people most concerned about this choice, beyond any doubt at all, are the people in the single-channel area and it is they who must be satisfied, not after the choice is made but before the choice is made.

I will come back to that because objections of various degrees of weight have been made to it. Before I do that, let me reduce this concept of single-channel and multi-channel from an abstraction to something concrete and real. What is the multi-channel area? The multi-channel area consists of the people who live in the counties of Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Sligo, Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Meath, Westmeath, Kildare and Dublin— Dublin with cable and multiple possibilities—Wicklow and Wexford East, with fringe areas elsewhere to which I will come back. Fifty per cent of the population live in areas with multi-channel access, although some of these have poor location. As Senator Alexis FitzGerald told us, you can have individuals who are mini-single channellers in multi-channel areas, and so on. About 50 per cent of the population live there; 40 per cent have sets of multi-channel viewing; half of these are wired.

Those who live in these areas and, we all know this, make wide use of such multi-channel possibilities as they have. They do not neglect RTE. They watch RTE when they want to watch it. When they do not feel like watching RTE, when there is something more attractive elsewhere, then they tune into that. They tune in a great deal to these British stations—what has been called Telefís na Banríona—and they are subjected to all the evils of which some, not all, of those who oppose this section spoke.

Senator Lenihan spoke of the drip, drip, drip of insidious propaganda to which people are exposed who see British television year in year out, and he wept over the people of the west who would never recover if they were subjected to this. Senator Yeats said that the people of the west and south would be swamped in British propaganda and British culture if they were exposed to one BBC channel.

I have not got the record with me but he used the word "swamped"—

Mr. Yeats

I did not. I looked up the record. I used it in reference to RTE, not to culture or anything of that kind.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

In that case, I apologise to the Senator. I understood him in that sense. Certainly, Senator Dolan and others have spoken in that sense and I have the quotations. In any case the drip, drip, drip of insidious British propaganda is from very recently from over there and I take it that Senator Yeats would not disavow it. The point is that those, as far as we find out—and I do not think any Senator seriously denied this—who live in the present single-channel area want to get as near to multi-channel conditions as they can. Right? That is, the people of Ireland, one part of them enjoying multi-channel television and the other part wanting to enjoy that. If I may quote James Connolly if nobody objects to my so doing:

Ireland without her people means nothing to me.

These are the kinds of preferences of the people of Ireland at present, the actual people as distinct from an abstraction sometimes trundled around in that capacity.

As regards the people who live in the single-channel area, we have only indications of what are their preferences. I regard those indications as rather strong. I think the indications point in favour of live retransmission of a British service in preference to the kind of concept described by Senators opposite which I quite agree is probably not as yet fully understood by people in the single-channel area. It is the job of those who believe strongly in it to make it known. Some people have suggested it is the duty of the Government to make up their mind what the people of the single-channel area should have and then go out and sell that to them; irrespective of what they actually think they want, the Government ought to go to them and say: You think you want this but that is because you are ignorant, poor people; you do not really know what is good for you; this is what you should get and, when we have convinced you that you should get it, or before that, we will give it to you and then you will come to like it in time. It is a concept of what Government should be, leading the people—strong, somewhat overbearing and it may, in certain circumstances, be appropriate. There are circumstances in which it is right for a Government to take an unpopular stand and be prepared to carry it through. Whether this is so in the question of television preferences is another matter. I do not think it is. In any case, these matters should be and can be tested.

Senator Lenihan asked and this time I am quoting directly, that:

The Minister should stop this nonsense; that it is a question of providing something for the single-channel area, which the people in the multi-channel area have, and which the Minister wants to give to the single-channel area. That is not the issue.

Is not it the issue? Senator Lenihan also expressed in another part of his speech —and I am sorry he is not here for the close of the debate on this section— that he wanted confrontation. He accused the Government of running away from confrontation, broadcast confrontation and others, and Members of the Government.

Let me say this—I would be quite happy not merely to enter into broadcast discussion with Senator Lenihan on this matter but to go to any area— let us take Roscommon which is a fringe area, that is to say, they receive some broadcasting from outside and they cannot therefore be accused of not knowing anything about it; it is also Senator Lenihan's county, or was—I would be prepared to go there with him to any public hall in that county and discuss these things. I would not seek to bulldoze people on behalf of BBC 1 or tell them that it was a marvellous service; most of them would have had a chance of looking at it occasionally and Senator Lenihan would have a chance of talking about the other concept, a thoroughly democratic exercise. Why not? In fact I would be prepared to visit any part of the single-channel area. Let me name the counties in the single-channel area—Cork, Kerry, Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford, except for Waterford city; Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, which is fringe, Leix-Offaly and Kilkenny-Carlow, which are fringe. I would be prepared to go to any of those places to discuss this matter.

I have no strong prejudice in favour of the BBC but I have no prejudice against it either. I have this degree of inclination for it, apart from what I think is probably the preference, and that is the main thing of the people in the area, I have a certain prejudice in favour of a BBC or UTV service coming from Northern Ireland. It is true, as Senators have reminded us, and relevant that at present these services contain a rather small part of production only actually prepared in Northern Ireland itself. But it is also true that these services are there because a very large proportion of the population of Northern Ireland, a majority in fact, wish that to be so. This also is a fact which we cannot wish out of existence. I certainly would not tell the people of the single-channel area: you must have BBC 1 because it carries some material from Northern Ireland and because I tell you so. No; I would not; I would certainly mention that as a fact and I would be prepared to abide by a clear reaction that might be obtained. I mentioned my so called challenge to RTE earlier, my proposal that they should put on a programme or programmes aimed to expound their view and get a reaction to it. That is not the only way of doing it.

One can also go around and discuss with people; there are various kinds of polls, but I would agree the reason I lay emphasis on public discussion of this matter in the areas concerned is this: I agree with Senators on those benches that people do not as yet have a picture of what those who favour what we briefly call RTE 2 have in mind by it. They do not know, for example, that they have in mind by it the live retransmission of certain programmes from say, BBC 1, perhaps from other BBC channels and that the difference is that it would draw from different sources and of course that it would be edited in Dublin; that anything the editor considered unsuitable would be out and the things he considered suitable would be in. Okay, shall we try? Are we prepared to try? Are we prepared to experiment ourselves? We are having a very good debate. But, in a matter like this, which is important and is so much a matter of the preference and inclinations of people—the minds of people, their choice of, among other things, entertainment in a time when many people feel the need for entertainment and when this is one of the cheapest and most satisfactory forms of entertainment, not something in which one should lightly overrule people's preferences, that we should go out and be prepared to argue with people; let them hear our arguments; be influenced by them, take it very much into the public square as a kind of exercise in participatory democracy.

Dr. Martin

Might I ask the Minister, in that connection, whereas there is an enabling clause here to allow him to rebroadcast in the sense in which section 6, sections (1) and (2) are concerned, is there any clause in this Bill which would enable him to do the other option we have been suggesting, that is, the anthology-type RTE 2?

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Yes, RTE already have powers of that description under the 1966 Act.

Dr. Martin

So it is an open field?

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Yes. They have powers to arrange with other broadcasting authorities the distribution, receipt, exchange and relay of programmes whether live or recorded. That is the 1960 Act, as amended by the 1966 Act.

Dr. Martin

So they are of equal status once this section is passed?

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Yes. These options are quite open. The option which the Senator prefers is now being let out of the box.

Mr. Yeats

Would the Minister agree that under the 1960 Act they also have power to rebroadcast the BBC in the manner he wishes, if they wish?

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Yes, that is right.

Mr. Yeats

Therefore the section is merely to give him the power to force them to.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

That is exactly right; it gives the Government the power through the Minister.

Mr. Yeats

Not the Government, the Minister.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Minister acts on behalf of the Government in this matter. As the Senator knows, this is a collective responsibility situation.

Mr. Yeats

Sometimes "Government" is stated in the Bill and sometimes "Minister". In this case it is "Minister".

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I assure the Senator that the Minister would not act without the authority of the Government in a matter such as this.

Dr. Martin

I should like to thank the Minister for that information.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Thank you, Senator Martin. A number of Senators mentioned that the proposal to rebroadcast Northern Ireland programmes here was unprecedented. This is not so. The Italian Government have approved plans for rebroadcasting Swiss, Austrian, French and German television programmes in two provinces in the North of Italy. They will be rebroadcast exactly as transmitted by the Swiss, Austrian, French and German television authorities with no censorship, pre-selection or control of content. One province has already signed agreements with these broadcasting authorities for the rebroadcasts. It is expected that rebroadcasts there will commence in about two months. Moreover, broadcasting legislation passed recently by the Lower House of the Italian Parliament provides that the national broadcasting service must organise the television network in bi-lingual frontier regions to make it suitable for rebroadcasting programmes from neighbouring foreign broadcasting organisations and envisages the issue of licences for installation and operation of repeaters by State authorities in the various provinces for the rebroadcast, within the national territory, of foreign programmes in vision and sound. Apart from the Italian direct precedent, relay of signals of foreign television programmes on cable systems is widespread in Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, not to mention our own multi-channel system.

I should like now to come to points made by Senators—I do not know what the feeling of the Seanad would be; we are due to stop at 5 o'clock——

Comdt. Sanfey

We agreed to carry on and finish section 6. Is not that so?

Mr. Yeats

Yes.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

That was agreed when we resumed after lunch— that we would finish at 5 o'clock, or when section 6 was finished.

Mr. McAuliffe

I understand there is a train leaving for the West at 5.45 p.m. and that quite a number of Senators present are expecting to travel on it.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

We made the agreement during the luncheon break. I think we had better continue.

Comdt. Sanfey

We agreed on resumption after lunch to carry on until section 6 was finished.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

It is a question of how far I protract my remarks. I have material here—if I am to reply to everything.

Mr. Yeats

It seems to me to be a matter for the Minister. We did agree to finish section 6 today. It may well be that the Minister would feel that we should all have an adequate opportunity, including himself, to debate section 6, that we might consider adjourning at 5 o'clock and resuming in view of the fact that, presumably, there is no question of the other House taking up this Bill until the autumn. One must be realistic about this. Therefore, perhaps the Minister would like to adjourn the matter at 5 o'clock. After the Minister has finished I personally do not propose speaking at any length but naturally I cannot speak for other Senators.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I thank Senator Yeats for his intervention. We have had a lot of section 6 and I think it would be preferable to finish it off today, as we are clearer about it now, particularly as it has been amended. Therefore, I propose taking up merely a few points out of the many made in the debate. If Senators are not satisfied, I would hope that, at a later stage—perhaps the Report Stage—we might cover any aspects that have not been covered.

Dr. West

There are several questions I want to ask the Minister and he obviously is not going to deal with them now. Can I raise them on the Report Stage? I could not acquiesce in his proposal now were it not open to me to make these points on Report Stage.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It is for the House to decide. This is Committee Stage. Individual Senators would have the right to speak again when the Minister has finished. It was agreed after lunch that in order to facilitate Senators, we would finish business today at 5 o'clock or when section 6 was completely debated. That, as I understand it, is the arrangement of the House. It is a matter for the House to order what way they want it.

Dr. West

With respect, that is not the question I asked. I asked can I raise my points, if they are not covered now, on the Report Stage. What is the actual procedure?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Senator can raise them on Committee Stage. We shall still be on Committee Stage when the Minister has finished.

Dr. West

We cannot raise them on Report Stage. Therefore, we would have to deal with them now. If this debate is to continue properly, we have got to deal with them now. We cannot raise them on Report Stage.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

In that case, having made perhaps the core of my statement in reply, I had better let other Senators in and attempt to reply to the points that they feel must be pressed now.

Mr. Yeats

I would urge the Minister to continue speaking. After all, we have had a very long debate, what might be called an extensive first round. I do not think anyone has spoken twice but many people have spoken, sometimes at some length. Certainly I should like to hear the Minister give a full reply to what has been said so far, rather than start a second round and then have him reply to what we say. Certainly I should prefer the Minister to complete his remarks.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

If no other Senator offers, I shall call on the Minister again.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

All right. I cannot promise to reply to every point, partly because of not being able to read or understand some of my own notes. There are one or two points: Senator Martin referred to the Irish literary revival and its achievements. Of course, I share Senator Martin's admiration for the achievement of the Irish literary revival; it was a very marked one, but I do not think that, even when it was proceeding it, let us say, penetrated deeply the psyche of all, or even most, Irish people. Therefore, in a comparison of the Irish literary revival and television one is comparing something which is only partly like with like, because television is, inevitably, in great part operating on a level which is not the level of the poetry of Yeats. It is not so in any country. If one devoted a great deal of programmes to the Irish literary revival I am afraid one would find that they would be watched by quite small numbers of people. One may say numbers are not everything and I entirely agree but particular numbers have a relevance in a democracy. The preferences of people who are not interested in the Irish literary revival are not simply to be ignored or set aside. It is a question of a type of balance. There were rather controversial points in the Senator's speech.

Dr. Martin

In relation to that I recall that my point about the Irish literary revival was that, among the things it had achieved for us was a sense of cultural identity. I did not mean to compare it with television.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It would be better if the Minister were allowed to conclude. Senators can then ask questions.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Senator used an argument of which he then appeared half ashamed and said he was on the verge of being unscrupulous when he tried to evoke the feelings which he ascribed to people whom he described as right wing Catholics who might feel that indecent and improper subjects would be discussed on the BBC. Some people have the feeling—the point was made, I think, by Senator Boland—that very few politicians have time to watch television. I think some of them have strange ideas as to what is on television. I know at least one very distinguished Senator who never watches television and who seems to think that BBC 1 issues programmes of Byzantine depravity every night—blue movies and the Lord knows what. It is not as interesting as that, as Senator Martin indicated. He referred to the bread and circuses philosophy, giving the people what they wanted and so on as not a very good thing. Again this seems to leave out of consideration the fact that RTE is supported by the people who pay the licence fees, about half of whom live in the single-channel area and who have every right to express their views and make their views felt politically as I believe their views will be felt politically on this matter as is their right to do. It is not exactly a situation of no taxation without representation for them. They feel it in something like the same way. They feel they are being taxed while getting for their tax satisfactions very much less, and very much less varied, than are available to others for the same fee.

Among other things this has dangers for RTE itself. Unless the whole concept of RTE 2—as those who oppose it would see it—is clarified and sold by those who believe in it to the people in the single-channel area, then the effects are going to be very bad for RTE itself in alienating the goodwill of about half the people. That goodwill in those areas is at a rather low ebb at present. It will sink lower if people in those areas come to feel, as they are in danger of feeling, that other people are forcing down their throat a kind of choice they do not want. Several speakers from the single-channel area made that point clear. I think their utterances were rather too lightly brushed aside by speakers from the other side of the House during this debate.

I wonder when this Bill goes to the Dáil will the direct representatives of those territorial areas, with people breathing down their necks, be able to take so cavalier an attitude towards the preferences of people in the single-channel area and talk about bread and circuses philosophy and the other dismissive phrases which I used and which perhaps are more easily used in a Chamber elected indirectly than in one elected directly. We shall see. That is another advantage of bringing this Bill into the Seanad where it can be discussed in a more detached way first and then into the other arena and it will be interesting to see both the similarities and the differences between the two types of discussion. I would not be surprised, for example, if some of the Dáil colleagues of Senators here who have spoken in very strong terms against this provision tried to convey to them the sense that perhaps they had gone just a little too far. We shall see.

Virtually every Senator who spoke agreed on the need for choice. Senator West spoke of what he offered as providing an even better and wider choice. Perhaps, but again, those on whose behalf the choice is made, and to whom the choice matters, would have to be convinced that it is even better and wider. While we have to be concerned both with the multi-channel and single-channel, interest in this whole proposition in the multi-channel area is rather low. They do not very much care what way the choice goes. I have every reason to know that, in the single-channel area, concern about this is strong and steadily growing as it comes near the point. I may say that debates like this have tended to increase that concern, and I think that is all right too. Senator West said nobody is going to stand up for us but ourselves. He was speaking there collectively for the Irish people as a whole. I would agree with that; it is right of any group of people. But the people in the single-channel area may well feel the same and may decide to make themselves felt effectively on their own behalf, not feeling that people in the multi-channel area are sufficiently concerned with them. That is a pity. Indeed I think it is one of the reasons why some people in the multi-channel area—I admired Senator Markey's statement on this in particular—have tried to put themselves in the shoes of people in the single-channel area and asked: "What would we feel in the analogous position?" The analogous position being, of course, if people proposed to make cable television illegal thereby limiting choice here and saying: "You can have instead a kind of anthology which RTE will prepare for you which would be much better, would save you a lot of trouble; would be in the best hands and give you the widest choice that is actually good for you." You could not sell that on the east coast. Personally I do not think you will be able to sell——

Mr. Kerrigan

Sell the television sets.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Senator West did utter the Burkian sentiment—I am going to give them what I think they ought to want.

Dr. West

What they ought to have; the same thing.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

All right, I accept that: I am going to give them what I think they ought to want. There are limitations on that in a democracy.

Dr. West

I agree with that.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

As one of the Senator's constituents, I have the right to talk to him. I am not against university representation: I do not want to make a demogogic point, particularly as the university representatives have made very valuable contributions to this debate. One thing about them is that they are insulated from the kind of public opinion that people who are in public life are exposed to. I am not talking about those who spoke on this side and agreed with me. I thank them but they would not want me to go on about them.

Senator Noel Browne is something of a hit and run debater. He speaks himself but he is not there to be answered. I am sorry that he is not there because he might have been able to clarify his remarks. He began by saying that it was indispensable to confine multi-channel viewing to the Dublin area, that multi-channel viewing should be everywhere but not at the expense of the State service. If it was everywhere it would be everywhere in competition with the State service, and BBC 1 is only a small step in that direction. He then spoke in a manner which I find quite incomprehensible. He strongly condemned the sort of life, education, institutions and attitudes to life that we have in this country. He has rendered public service on occasions by public criticisms of some of these things— though I think he has pushed his criticisms too far sometimes, to the extent that they have backfired. He thinks this is a terrible little hole we are living in and has never ceased to say so. He now says that this terrible little hole must be protected at all costs from alien influences as broadcast from abroad, although he favours the extension of multi-channel television outside the Dublin area. I do not know what to make out of any of that and I will not linger on it.

Senator Lenihan spoke about the principle of sovereignty. Sovereignty is not involved here. There is not the slightest sacrifice of sovereignty. We retain control over what goes over all our channels—six—and we shall use them as we choose. If this Government, for example, choose to use this machinery for rebroadcasting BBC 1, it does so by its own sovereign will and a successor Government—if ever there is a Fianna Fáil Government again— could change that and do anything they like. There is no abdication of sovereignty. The introduction of sovereignty is simply an emotional term here.

Senator Horgan asked whether the channel would be available for native production, as he said, when the other channel was not on the air. Certainly, it would. Senator Deasy made a point about what he called reciprocity. That is the question in which I am still interested—the bringing of RTE into Northern Ireland. I have been in touch with not only the British authorities but with representatives of both minority and majority opinion in the area with certain ideas on that matter. "Reciprocity" is not the exact word. It could not be negotiated on the basis of reciprocity because despite what has been said from the other side of the House, the BBC are not particularly interested in extending their service to the Republic. If we want it and terms can be negotiated which compensate the copyright holders, they are agreeable, but no more. If we say to them: "We will only do this if you take RTE in Northern Ireland" they will simply shrug their shoulders and say that that is nothing to do with the matter. So reciprocity is not the thing, but if this use was made, it would slightly reduce the resistances which exist in Northern Ireland to rebroadcasting RTE in the sense that it would be clear that we are not interested in a propaganda exercise but an overall and mutual exercise in communication.

Senator Yeats said it was not easy to assess public opinion on this matter. I quite agree with him. We should make an effort to assess it while intending to inform it better. I do not mean that in the sense that I go out and inform them. We all state our different ideas that RTE must join in this effort. If we were simply to assess public opinion in the single-channel area now, we would get the message in, I think, overwhelming volume in favour of rebroadcasting. I do not know if that can be changed if you explain your concept. I am certainly in favour of being given and taking every opportunity to explain as fully as possible what that concept is. What I am not in favour of doing and with respect, I will not do, is to impose on people in the single-channel area against their will a concept, however admirable, which they do not want. Neither I nor the Government will do it. So the task of persuasion is rather up to you.

Senator Yeats maintained, on what basis I do not know as I do not follow his reasoning, that it is quite different for people to view a programme which comes to them by means of cable television in Dublin and to view the identical programme transmitted to them over transmitter and micro-wave to Galway. He actually said that the effect is totally different if the same programme comes on our own transmitters. Why should it be totally different? It is the same programme. I do not believe the viewer gives a damn whether it comes to him by means of little wires or by transmitters. He is interested in the programme. It is suggested that at present when he gets it down the cable, he knows it is a foreign programme, a British programme. Of course he knows that. Is it to be supposed that innocent people in Galway will think that because it comes over our transmitters we are turning it into an Irish programme or pretending it is an Irish programme? Of course not. It is the same thing. It will carry all the signs, signals, stigmata, weaknesses, peculiarities, strengths and otherwise of what it is—BBC. Nor will anyone seek to pretend that it is anything else.

Mr. Yeats

We are accepting responsibility for it by transferring it at the expense of the public.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Yes, it may be said that we are accepting responsibility for it if we do that, whereas if we simply license cable, which we could have stopped, we are not accepting responsibility. I believe in accepting responsibility for what I do. As long as it is transmitted we have a responsibility for having it transmitted properly.

One of the things about this situation is—I am sorry to use an emotive word but it is the appropriate word—that where people can see as many channels as they like in the multi-channel area, it tends to promote hypocrisy, that is to say, one can go on and on in that area. I have heard a Deputy from Dublin talking in Irish about saving the people of the west from Telefís na Banríona, and so on, whereas his own constituency and himself get Telefís na Banríona by licensed cable system. If people are serious about cultural protection they would ban cable. It has been said, and this was a recurring argument, that multi-channel television on the east coast is a geographical accident. It is a geographical accident that the east coast of Ireland is nearer to Britain than the west coast. That is true. But it is not a geographical accident that the last Government legalised the use of methods which made it possible for people to receive these programmes in competition with RTE—programmes having all this supposed effect of eroding and running down RTE—by deliberate choice by licensing. Now they are telling us that licensing cable is all right because you can say "That is not my responsibility. I issued the licence but somebody else put up the wires". But it is quite different to transmit it over our own transmitters because then you are taking responsibility, you are openly admitting what you are doing. What is wrong is not to let the thing be done, or to license it, but what is wrong is to be seen to be taking responsibility for it. I do not agree with that.

Senator Lenihan spoke a strange, picturesque and fetching phrase: "the grey area where reason and moderation meet"—a sort of foggy area. It is more appropriate to speak of a grey area where issues can be fudged. That is if it is a question of turning a blind eye to the cables you have licensed. What cannot be fudged, of course, is if you decide to take responsibility openly for rebroadcasting a service which people want.

Senator Yeats said also that we should do everything possible to strengthen Irish television. I agree with him. I am not convinced that the effect of competition is necessarily to weaken Irish television. On the contrary, Senator Martin gave amusing examples of the sort of thing BBC sometimes broadcast which he then said was a carbon copy of RTE. It is not exactly that way round. Either way, there is some carbon copying in it. If BBC are supplying the "Cannons" and so on, presumably RTE will be under pressure to do something else. In my belief, it will be found that the most effective thing RTE can do in these conditions is to appeal more to that in which alone they have the edge over this powerful international corporation—the use of the local, the use of what belongs to us, what is is distinctively Irish. Unless they use that method in competition, they will inevitably fail. That is the way it has to go.

Dr. West

Surely "Cannon" is an American programme and all they would have to do is buy another American "bang-bang".

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Senator will have a chance to come in on this later. My view is that is our most effective answer. Senator Yeats also said that the people of the single-channel area have not sufficient knowledge to make a considered judgment. That is a rather patronising attitude.

Mr. Yeats

No. Knowledge of what the issues are in this case.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I have a direct note of what the Senator said, but I accept that. In that case the Senator should make an effort to convey to them what the alternatives are. I do not know if he is doing that. He asked about legal problems. There are legal problems, mainly copyright, and negotiations are going on about these. There are not insoluble. I will not enter into them here. Neither, with respect, am I going to try to answer here, except in a general way a question put by Senator Martin about the cost of rebroadcasting. That has not yet been effectively ascertained, though we know the order of magnitude. With inflation and other things, that may not be the same when we come round to signing anything. I would not care to mention a figure. In any case, I would need the agreement of our interlocutor. As far as I can find out, the cost of rebroadcasting BBC 1 and of the kind of RTE 2 which Senators envisage, would be about the same. I do not know which way the edge would be. Some say one way and some say the other, but I have not convincing proof about that.

Mr. E. Ryan

Does that mean that the fee will be doubled?

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I cannot say at the moment the effect on the fee, but it will not go down in either circumstances. Senator Horgan made an admirable statement, which I would like to read over at leisure, in which he said he did not disagree on what my estimate of single-channel opinion at present is. That is an important statement. He mentioned the important question of multi-channel reaction to any increase in licence fees that might derive, or derive in part, from rebroadcasting. Several points come in there. The increase in licence fees, whatever it may be, would be approximately the same for rebroadcasting and for RTE 2. Multi-channel viewers would presumably feel that they would get more value from RTE 2. Some of them would get value from rebroadcasting, for example, people in Senator Alexis FitzGerald's position, and there are quite a few scattered throughout the area. Multi-channel viewers would be disgruntled with any form of second channel because they already have multi-channel viewing. Whether it would make much difference if it was a rebroadcast or a second RTE I do not know. One reason why I do not know is that there has been very little evidence of strong interest in this subject in the multi-channel area.

Senator Dolan made an emotional speech about betraying everything the Irish people had fought for down the ages and so on. He also accused me of being West British, anti-national, non-national and so on. I do not take that all that heavily. I should like to say something about it because it affects this debate. Some of those—by no means all — who have said "Let us not rebroadcast this even if the people in the single-channel want it" have chosen to beat the anti-British drum, sometimes in light taps sometimes in big bangs. Those of us who do not respond or care for that are accused of being West Britons. I am so accused. It does not hurt or worry me very much.

My roots go quite as deep in the history of this country and in the culture of this country as those of Senator Dolan or anyone else here. Senator Dolan and Senator Yeats sit on those benches and are Irishmen of a different type to one another. I am an Irishman of a different type to either. I do not regard myself as in a position to decry the Irishness of either of them and I wish they would extend the same courtesy to me and to the rest of their fellow citizens. I do not regard the test of a person's Irishness as the degree of his anti-Britishness. I have a low degree of anti-Britishness and a low degree of anti-foreignness of any description. I wish that particular drum were not beaten here and I think the University Senators who were invoked with such enthusiasm by the Fianna Fáil speakers possibly did not care, some of them said they did not care, for that particular note being struck either.

The trade union question was brought up. Several Senators referred to my own union, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, and its opposition to this which was presumed to be monolithic. I went down to the appropriate place, the annual conference of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, to defend my view on this. Unfortunately while there I caused some inconvenience to the Seanad for which I again apologise. I made a statement from which I quote a part:

Delegates will be conscious of the enormous speed and enthusiasm with which piped television was taken up in Dublin and other towns, since it was made legal in response to public demand in 1970. It is as well to be conscious of this train of events which was set in motion five years ago.

Up to that time, reception of BBC and ITV programmes was, as I have been so often told, "a geographical accident". After that decision, the relay of BBC and ITV programmes became a deliberate act of will by Irish people, under Irish Government licence and in large part carried out by the national Broadcasting Authority itself. It is noteworthy and logical that serious organised agitation only began in the single-channel area after "multi-channel viewing" ceased to be a matter of pure geographical accident in this manner, and became a matter of public policy.

It is of course right and proper for Trade Unions to defend their members' real interests — the interests of all their members. But the talk of cut-backs and redundancies at RTE must be subjected to cool examination in the light of experience.

The authorisation of cable television in 1970 brought in intense competition not by one extra channel, but by three of four extra channels into the capital city of Dublin, the market with most significance for advertisers. Not only that but two of those channels carried advertisements for internationally known products which reduced the need for those companies to advertise on RTE. In addition purely Dublin advertisers could, and did, advertise on UTV. This is a much more real and direct form of competition, than what the Government is at present proposing. What has happened? Both advertisement income and total employment have risen at RTE—advertisement from £3 million to £5 million, employment from 1,460 to 1,650 between 1969 and 1974. Against this background there is no real reason to contemplate redundancy and insecurity as resulting from the much less far-reaching proposal, in terms of competition, which is now contemplated.

Let me add something else: the trade union movement, like every other large movement or group of associations, is not monolithic. Different opinions are expressed within it, and rightly so. My own statement was very well received by that conference. Afterwards there was a very clear expression of opinion on behalf of people representing considerable numbers of trade unions in the the single-channel area in favour of what I am now proposing. Senator Harte, a member of the Workers' Union, has expressed a similar view. Certainly our trade unionists have taken opposites. Of course, the trade unionists in RTE take that view quite strongly. Other trade unionists in the multi-channel area may not be greatly preoccupied with the question, having other things on their minds. Trade unionists in the single-channel area tend to share the views of other people in the single-channel area, as would be expected. I do not think that this blanket version of trade union opposition can appropriately be invoked.

Senator Alexis FitzGerald made, as usual, a very interesting speech raising some interesting questions. As he says himself, he takes a rather conservative point of view and does not much like or watch television at all. He suggested an amendment, which I will take into consideration, and that is the setting of some kind of qualification to the present prohibition on the Authority to express their own views on certain issues. There might be issues on which under certain conditions the Authority would be authorised to express a view. I have an open mind on that and I am certainly prepared to look at it.

I do not quite understand what Senator Eoin Ryan was driving at when he spoke of the EEC and the BBC, as if there was some kind of contradiction there. It is my understanding that there is now no prospect of Britain withdrawing from the EEC, although he seemed to think that there was when he was speaking. If they had been withdrawing that might be a problem but they are not. I would like this country to be in as active a contact with other EEC countries, speaking other languages, as with Britain. It is, however, a fact that Britain and Ireland are two EEC countries which share for most ordinary day-to-day purposes, the same language, a common language, and this will always, affect communications between us in a most powerful way. One Senator suggested that the second channel should be handed over to programmes in various languages. He mentioned not only EEC languages but Czechoslovakian and Yugoslav. I do not think this would fully meet the linguistic or other requirements of people in the single-channel area.

Senator Boland expressed in a rather acute form, and in a way so did Senator West after him, one thing that is wrong with this concept, certainly with the concept of an RTE 2 as described—or at least something that has to be further clarified before you could put over the idea to those to whom it has to be put over. This is the point that you get this second channel and then you use it to put in minority things that you would not get on RTE 1. Senator Dolan mentioned county cricket and Senator West seemed to like that too.

Dr. West

"Rugby Special".

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Irish language programmes in more abundance were mentioned. If you were to give the people of Galway a second channel which contained any large quantity of county cricket and any very great expansion in the number of Irish language programmes you would not be giving them what they feel to be a choice. The whole point is that there is no good giving people a choice which they do not feel to be a choice. You have got to find out what do they feel to be a choice before you can give them a choice. If Senators who take this view can persuade them in those areas that what those Senators propose — and there has been a remarkable degree of unanimity between them as to the kind of thing they think should be provided on RTE 2: RTE have done a good deal of lobbying in that area, the facts are not entirely unconnected and I think there is no reason why they should not lobby and no reason why Senators should not listen — will have to persuade those people that what they propose is for them a choice. If those Senators and RTE cannot convince them that it is a choice I am not going to tell them: "I am going to give you this whether you like it or not".

An Cathaoirleach

Before Senators embark on a further round of discussion on the principle of section 6, I should like to ask if it is intended to adjourn for tea.

Comdt. Sanfey

I do not think so. We agreed to sit on to do section 6 and I think we should.

An Cathaoirleach

I would urge Senators—we are in Committee and it is permissible to speak more than once— that there should not be repetition of what has already been said on this particular question in a very long debate.

Mr. Yeats

I can assure you and the House that I do not intend to go over the general matter of the implications and principles involved in section 6. I said what I wanted to on this matter both on this Stage and on the Second Reading. I am not going to go over the ground I covered before, but there are a couple of matters arising out of the Minister's statement that I should like to deal with.

First of all one might mention that the Minister recently, towards the end of his speech, mentioned the interesting speech of Senator Alexis FitzGerald. I also thought it was an interesting speech. One got the impression that Senator FitzGerald did not like the idea of section 6. I may be wronging him but he gave all the impressions of a man who was wriggling, who was unwilling to go against what the Minister proposed but nonetheless was distinctly uneasy.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Senator FitzGerald can speak very well for himself.

Mr. Yeats

He did speak very well for himself. He made his first-hand views fairly clear if one reads between the lines. To some extent, one might say, he attempted to salve his conscience by saying, "After all section 6 is only an enabling section and it need never happen". The only comment I would make on that is that as far as section 6 is concerned it is fair to say that the Minister is in a position of a racehorse champing at the bit at the start of a race waiting for the gate to be lifted so that he can be off to bring us the BBC. There is very little doubt about the Minister's personal views on this matter. He has every intention, if he can manage it, to use the full dictatorial powers given to him in this section.

When the Minister began his speech he suggested that this section, as he put it, opens possibilities. As he admitted later on in answer to an interruption, there is no question of this section opening any possibilities. The powers in ample form already exist in the 1960 Act for the Authority to broadcast complete programmes from the BBC or anywhere else that they wish to. They do not need the power in this section. It is there already and the only conceivable purpose of the section and the only amendment it makes to the principal Act in effect is that it gives the power to the Minister to direct the Authority, whether they want to or not, to carry the programmes of the BBC. It is, in other words, a section designed for the specific and the sole purpose of giving this Minister the authority to direct an unwilling Authority to hand over this Irish second channel to the BBC.

The Minister came back, as he has been coming back constantly throughout this debate, to the cable system which he apparently seems to think proves that after all this kind of situation exists already. That is a basic point about the cable system not merely in Dublin but also in all other countries where these systems exist. They do not operate at the expense of existing Irish television channels in the sense that what he is doing now is that he is saying we have the possibility of a second Irish channel—the frequencies are available, the transmitters are being built. Instead of having an Irish television channel, he says, let us have a foreign one, or if he prefers the word "English", an English one. The cable systems of course are in competition with Radio Telefís Éireann not in the sense that they take over a complete network, half the total broadcasting facilities of the national television station. They do not do that in Dublin and they do not do that in any other country. That is the basic distinction. Here we have a situation where our Irish television service has the possibility of doubling their programme output by the introduction of a second channel and the Minister proposes to instruct the Authority to hand over this to an English station instead.

The basic difference between us and the Minister is that he proposes to do nothing to create an Irish second channel. He ignores and flouts the wishes of the Authority in this matter. Clearly if the Authority were in any way willing to hand over their second channel to the BBC there would be no need for this section. The existence of the section shows that the Minister is flouting the wishes of the Authority and is also flouting the views of the broadcasting review board. One might wonder why he had a broadcasting review body if when they reported and unanimously decided that the second channel should be an Irish one the Minister flouts their views also. One wonders why one should have such a body at all. But the Minister keeps on saying it is not a matter of what the Authority want; it is not a matter what the broadcasting review board want; it is not a matter even of what he might want. We know what he wants, know what the Government might want, but you have to count heads and see what the majority of the people want.

Of course, this in some respects highly desirable democratic sentiment, if carried to the extremes the Minister is carrying it, in this instance, would have curious results. I wonder if the Minister were to carry out one of his private Gallup polls that he seems to specialise in, would he find a majority in favour of taxpayers' money being spent on the National Museum; would he find a majority in favour of taxpayers' money being spent on the National Library, or on the maintenance of a rather expensive symphony orchestra, at the expense of the licence holders of RTE? Would a majority of the public support the idea of subsidising the theatre, or putting good money each year into the Arts Council, or would they think that it was a good idea to spend money through the Board of Works in maintaining ancient monuments, or would they think it was a good idea, a majority of them, to make all these grants that are made—admittedly they are far too small in Irish conditions but nonetheless there are grants—to a variety of other cultural institutions? One could carry on indefinitely with lists such as this. It is quite obvious that if the Minister's views in this kind of way were to be carried out at all levels one would find that a great deal of extremely valuable expenditure carried out each year would automatically be dropped. I think that this would be a bad thing.

I am not suggesting that there is a great comparison between such relatively cultural matters that I have referred to and television. Obviously television is an entertainment. One hopes that it would have a certain cultural value but basically it is a form of entertainment, instruction, information and so on. Nonetheless, it is part of the national individuality.

We asked the Minister time and time again and suggested to him whether the introduction of British television in this way would adversely affect our sense of Irish individuality. He refused to answer. The way he puts it is: "After all, lots of people on the east coast look at British television already and what harm has it done to them?" My answer is that I do not know, but I would put it to the Minister in this way. Surely the Minister must admit that television has an enormous influence. Surely he must concede that of all the media of communication that exist at the present day far the most powerful is that of television. Surely he must concede that television must have some effect on somebody. You cannot simply write it off like that and say, "We can take television in from anywhere from any country in any quantity without affecting in any way the outlook of Irish people".

It must have some effect, and from this point of view it would seem to us on this side of the House and, indeed, to some on the other side of the House that in the interest of Irish individuality one should have as strong as possible an Irish television service. This is not a matter of being anti-British or being nationalist. It is a matter of being Irish in the way that the French are French, the English are English, the Italians are Italians. Incidentally, on the subject of Italians, perhaps I might deal with the matter that he referred to of the legislation in the Italian Lower House apparently to allow this type of operation in Italian border areas. First of all it would appear from what he says that this is a linguistic matter.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Not only now in border areas.

Mr. Yeats

Not only in border areas. It was a linguistic matter——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Yes.

Mr. Yeats

——from the point of view of the State broadcasting service. Surely as far as this concern is affected it is a matter of border areas, as I understood it. It was a linguistic matter, that you have German speakers, for example, who obviously do not have direct access to the generality of a State programme——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Just to clear that point up so that I will not have to come back to it again:

Broadcasting legislation passed recently by the Lower House of the Italian Parliament provides that the national broadcasting service must organise the television network in bilingual frontier regions to make it suitable for rebroadcasting programmes from neighbouring foreign broadcasting services, and envisages the issue of licences for installation and operation of repeaters by State authorities in the various provinces for the rebroadcast within the national territory of foreign programmes in vision and sound.

Mr. Yeats

That confirms what I have said that this is in border areas. This is a linguistic matter.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

It is an extension.

Mr. Yeats

We will not bother with the minutiae of it. The basic point that I put to the Minister is that it is not at the expense of closing down an Italian national network. That is the basic difference.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

There is nothing being closed down.

Mr. Yeats

Oh, yes, there is. We have the chance of a second Irish television channel. The Minister is saying——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

We built the channel.

Mr. Yeats

I do not care who built it. I will give the Minister credit for building it. Is that not enough? Is he happy? The Minister has built a television network. We have the chance therefore of a second Irish television programme. Unlike the Italians or any other nationality—I cannot conceive of any other nationality anywhere in the wide world who would have done this— we are saying that if we bring in the BBC, this outside concern, at the expense of not opening another Irish television channel, the alternatives before the Minister are to have two Irish programmes or one Irish programme and one foreign one. That is the choice he has taken and that is the basic distinction which cuts us away from the examples he has quoted in Italy or cable television or anything else. It is the simple fact of the matter that instead of opening up a new second Irish television programme he is handing this over to foreigners.

He was rather indignant at some Senator—I do not know whether it was Senator Dolan—who referred to sovereignty, and he was indignant that sovereignty did not seem to come into it because all this decision could be changed. To take an extreme and rather extravagent example, supposing the Oireachtas were to pass legislation, if it is possible to do it under the Constitution, whereby the Government would be handed over to, say, the British Government subject to the Oireachtas being able to meet and revoke this arrangement, surely the Minister would admit that that is a loss of sovereignty even though it might be temporary—the fact that it is temporary does not mean that it is not a loss of sovereignty.

The Minister has said that if things do not work out this arrangement can be changed. It is not as simple as that. It could be changed rapidly, theoretically overnight, if the necessary legal arrangements could be made, if he was to switch to UTV instead of having the BBC, but if it was a case of changing from a television channel wholly devoted to the BBC to an Irish television channel, I would say that it would take at least two years to make the preparations, recruit the staff and so on. It cannot be done overnight. Once you have BBC going, quite obviously to end them would be a long drawn out process which would involve the whole business of recruiting staff, deciding on programmes. It could not be done overnight or even in a single year.

However, I do not propose to go on any longer as it is quite clear that there is simply no point of meeting between the Minister and ourselves. It is a matter of whether one is actively in favour of a second Irish channel or not. The Minister clearly is not. If he was in favour of having the maximum amount of Irish television and was still exercised about public opinion, all he needs to do is to go out and with the efficiency at communication that he has always had he could try to persuade people that it is a good idea. Maybe he would fail and then he could go back to this proposal. But he has not done that. From the start he has pushed the idea that there ought to be the BBC. If there is a preference by the general public for the BBC it has been largely generated by the Minister. If the Minister were anxious to strengthen Irish television as much as possible he would have taken the opposite line. He would have gone to the people and pointed out the possibilities which undoubtedly are there for having a genuine choice.

Again, I stress that there is no question of anyone denying to anyone in this country a choice of television programmes. Quite clearly there must be a choice and we believe our suggestion would give a much greater choice, a much wider range, a much wider variety of programmes than what is proposed by the Minister.

Mr. Dolan

I am in wholehearted agreement with what Senator Yeats has said on this section. I firmly believe we are doing the wrong thing. We are handing over, lock, stock and barrel, to a foreign power the most important influential medium that any nation could possess, a second television channel. Whenever one country wants to take over another, or whenever a coup d'etat takes place, one of the first things to be taken over is the broadcasting system, both radio and television. Yet we are handing over to a foreign nation this tremendous power to condition us to their way of thinking. I will not go into the national outlook of the Minister, he has made reference to that himself, but people could be excused if they used strong language in protesting at what he is trying to do. He is 100 per cent in favour of pursuing this course, whether we like it or not.

An Irish Government are inviting in here a foreign power to take over. In the Statute of Kilkenny in 1467, laws were passed to prevent the English from becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves. We might have to pass a law in 1975 to prevent some of the Irish people here from becoming more English than the English themselves.

Comdt. Sanfey

We will stay here for the weekend to let you do it.

Mr. Dolan

I will not delay too long. We are handing over the soul of the nation, and we are doing a very wrong thing. I was particularly impressed by the speeches made on this side of the House and, indeed, by speeches made by supporters of the Government regarding what we have been asking for here all along, the provision of a second channel under Irish management. We do not wish to prevent anyone having a choice of programme. We have said this again and again.

Senator Martin is a very intelligent young man and he seems to have put a considerable amount of research into this matter. He is a man who knows a lot about broadcasting and about both the English and the Irish languages, and he realises the effect of the outlook conveyed by the media, its effect on our thinking at all times. He was quite right when he said we should guard our broadcasting system jealously.

Once the Minister has embarked on this course he will make it virtually impossible for anyone else to alter it because he will have handed over power to the British, they will have got their propaganda across; Telefís Éireann will eventually cease to exist because the powerful British interests will ensure that it will be non-existent in a few years. If the Minister has money to spare I appeal to him to use it first of all to make RTE available in the Province of Ulster, and to those of Irish descent who live in Britain and who would much prefer to know what was happening here, through their own media, than to know what is being put across to them by the BBC. The BBC have more money available to them than any other station in the world and they use their resources to broadcast British propaganda and the British way of life wherever they can. If we have money to spare we should see to our own people first. University Senators here, who have done considerable research on this, have said that only from 2 to 4 per cent of the programmes produced on BBC, Northern Ireland, are of Irish origin: the rest are entirely BBC. That illustrates the importance the British attach to ensuring that their programmes will be shown in Ulster and in the rest of Ireland.

I protest again at the Minister's decision. Future generations will certainly hold the Minister and the Coalition Government directly responsible for this act of perfidy against those who fought for generations to maintain our way of life and preserve the individuality of our culture. Our television service should be able to make us proud of belonging to this country, not ashamed of being Irishmen; we should not fall for the claptrap which says that if you are not broadminded, you are not an important person here. It is all right being broadminded, but people should not be ashamed of their origins and of past generations and their efforts to preserve our individuality as a nation and as a people. Our only way of succeeding in the European Community is by being proud of our own achievements, and having pride in what our citizens are able to do both as individuals and as a nation.

Dr. Martin

I was reassured to some extent—I do not want to repeat anything that was said before—by what the Minister said. At least the situation seems to be more open than I had thought it would be. I know that Fianna Fáil Senators do not take at total face value what the Minister says about being open to persuasion. What he said in effect is that the only way in which we can persuade him is to persuade the people, particularly outside the multi-channel area, to persuade him and the Government and, if we succeed in that, he will act by these wishes.

It is problematical. The Minister will have to admit this difficulty of finding out precisely what the people want. There was an old and, alas, lamented and past slogan of the Dublin newspaper boys around the streets. When there was a murder they used to go around shouting: "Murder, discovery found out." It is a great pity that piece of exotic linguistics has gone, but how is the discovery to be found out in this particular area? The only really accurate and scientific way to do it would be to hold a referendum and, obviously, that is not envisaged. Are we to be subjected to that grotesque campaign of letters under which we were snowed in the organised campaign against Senator Mary Robinson's birth control Bill?

That is another way by which people can be persuaded. Or is it to be done in a series of whistle-stop tours where the Minister takes on all comers at any time or in any place throughout the single-channel area to debate the matter? Is it to be done on television? The Minister will have to admit that he is introducing a principle in democracy that is not quite as unshakeable as he makes it. He very beautifully managed to cast Senator West in the role of Coriolanus here today while taking up the role of the well-meaning tribune of the people on his own part, pleading with this kind of Olympian Burkian figure who was saying: "Give the people what we want," whereas the Minister was saying: "Let us give the people what they want."

I am not convinced by the posture. do not think the Minister is as antagonistic towards the Burkian or the Coriolanian principle in politics as he seems to be in this affair in which he seems to regard as the only final arbiter of this matter not what is best but what the people want. In fact, he admitted himself that by and large he leans towards the anthology principle rather than towards the other one.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

By personal preference.

Dr. Martin

He is elected by the people because he is a man of judgment. He is elected by his colleagues to a ministerial post because he is a man of outstanding judgment. Still, at this moment of choice, he abrogates his judgment and says, "No". In some strange, mysterious and totally vague way he must find out what the people feel in the single-channel area and, having pulled this in through some mysterious antennae, translate that into legislation. That seems to me a strange principle. Quite frankly, I am not sure that it is a totally respectable principle. The only way in which it could be a totally respectable principle would be by the holding of a referendum. To do that in this matter would be ludicrous. I am not engaging in polemics, but I am putting this to the Minister in the spirit of persuasion. I am as interested in persuading him directly as I am interested in persuading him indirectly by persuading the people of the west of Ireland to go about persuading him.

One point involved in the soundings he has taken is interesting. There seems to me to be a bit of a contradiction in it also. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong. I do not mind being interrupted. He seemed to say today that the one thing it was certain the people in the single-channel area wanted was not the anthology concept but another channel in its entirety, be it BBC 1 or BBC 2. How that view could be elicited is beyond me. BBC 1 is radically different in concept, content, quality and every possible way from BBC 2. It is almost like saying of some people that, as well as their annual holiday in Bundoran they insisted with absolute precision that they would also like a holiday in Torremolinos or Florence and that they would utterly reject the possibility of a package tour which would include both. It is almost like somebody who was embarking on bigamy saying and insisting: "I must have a second wife like Raquel Welch or Margaret Thatcher." It is obvious that these two admirable women have totally different kinds of attractions and delights to offer. Similarly Torremolinos and Florence have totally different delights and attractions to offer. Surely it would be more reasonable to say: "There is somebody in between who can combine the two things." It really boggles my mind how the Minister can with such——

Mr. Yeats

Raquel Welch on Monday and Mrs. Thatcher on Tuesday.

Dr. Martin

That is what I mean. You have to decide on either one or the other. I cannot understand how the Minister could take soundings so elaborate, complex and sensitive as this from people in the west of Ireland and find them saying: "No, we do not want a mixture of BBC 1 and BBC 2. We want, and we are going to have it, BBC 1 or BBC 2", in other words, saying: "We want a diet of chalk or a diet of cheese, we either want the hors d'oeuvres or we want the dessert, but certainly not the main course.” That seems to me to be the kind of feeling that the Minister has elicited from the Irish people. I am astonished. That seems to be an act of magic which makes the Celtic twilight which we were praising earlier in the evening sound like——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Senator should knock on more doors.

Dr. Martin

I did not realise they were complex as the Minister has discovered. His researches in the west must have been really esoteric, extended and exotic.

Dr. West

Whatever about the first two let us hope the last one is correct.

Dr. Martin

I think I have a valid point there. I offer this to the Minister in the spirit of stunned admiration on the one hand and in the hope of persuading him on the other. Finally, I should like to reiterate that I do not like the notion of the BBC 1 channel for the reasons I have given and which I will not rehearse again. Surely the anthology is certainly more multiple than the single-channel. If it is a notion of multiplicity, the closest you will get to multiplicity is not through singularity but through the notion of anthology. I take at face value the desire expressed by the Minister that we should try to persuade the people one way or the other. I shall certainly try to do this because I feel passionately about it. He has assured us that he will stay his hand.

Listening to Senator Yeats my mind went back to Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim Two Birds. There are two characters in it called Timothy Danaos and Donna Ferentes. Senator Yeats thought these two characters were loitering in the lobbies very prominently today. I happen to think they are not. I take on trust what the Minister has said. I dislike with all my heart the notion of a single BBC 1 channel. I certainly intend to take up his challenge to try to influence as many people in and outside the multi-channel area as I can between now and the next stage of the Bill.

Dr. West

I do not wish to delay my happy smiling colleagues who are hovering outside waiting to vote. I want to ask the Minister a question which has some bearing on this proposal, and then make one other point. First of all, was there a copyright problem involved in legislating for piped television being introduced here? If so, how was it overcome, and has it any connection with the very large problem which would occur whatever proposal is adopted?

There are large problems of copyright particularly for the total rebroadcasting of a service. The point I tried to make in my speech this afternoon was that it is up to the Minister, the Government and, indeed, the Oireachtas to try to strike a balance——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

If the Senator will forgive me, I just missed a part of what he had to say because I was interested in the copyright problem.

Dr. West

The substance of my argument this afternoon was that the Minister, the Government and the Oireachtas must strike a balance between three things: first, what the people in the single-channel area want; secondly, what the people in the multi-channel area want—although they may not want it so strongly they will be paying equally for it—and thirdly, the development of our own television station. The point I tried to make was that, on balance, one should give the second channel to RTE because of the tremendous opportunity to develop our own television.

In his concluding remarks the Minister referred to this very briefly by saying he thinks the competition with BBC 1 will do RTE good. That is questionable. It is hard to answer that. There are the arguments one way which he has given. There are equally good arguments another way. What he has not dealt with is the problem of the wasted opportunity for RTE, of giving them a second channel and allowing them to develop, and really building up what I feel our television service should be if we are to have a national television service. If there is an opportunity for a second channel, if it can be shown—as I think it has been shown; and this has been referred to in the debate; it has been referred to in the media; Fr. Joseph Dunne was a particularly outstanding example — that a second channel would greatly enhance the development of RTE, why are we not doing this? What are the arguments?

The balance involves taking this into account? It is not just what the people in the single-channel area want; it involves all these points. The Minister has failed to deal with the fact that if this does not happen, if RTE do not get a second channel, their growth will be stunted and, because of the powerful competition, RTE will eventually wither and become very much a minority station. It is a sad and bleak forecast.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I hope Senators will not want me to rekindle the debate to any great extent so I will tread fairly lightly. There is one point I should like to deal with to start with. I referred to Senator Yeats as having said, or implied, that the effect of exposure to British television was a swamping one, I said that, if that was so, the eastern and northern parts of the Republic have been swamped, are swamped, and are a swamp. He denied having used that language in the sense which I implied and I asked him if what he said was swamped—because I knew he said something was swamped — he said that RTE would be swamped by British television. That is not quite what he said. The Seanad will have to judge which is nearer. He said:

What would the result be of having these British programmes transmitted in the manner suggested by the Minister? It is quite clear that RTE could not compete in the production of these programmes with the kind of money that is available to the BBC. The average income per head in Britain is almost 50 per cent greater than ours, and they have about 60 million people where we have three million. We would be swamped by this new form of competition. We would be dominated even more than we are at present by a foreign culture, by foreign standards of taste and by slanted news. We have been independent in this part of Ireland for more than 50 years. It is not untrue to say, I think, that even to this day the dominant external influence in our lives is still Britain.

If I misinterpreted the Senator my misinterpretation was, at least, fully understandable.

Mr. Yeats

I accept that it is ambiguous. The reference to "swamped" comes in, you might say, between a reference to RTE and to the cultural element. All I can say is that the swamping was intended to refer to RTE but I quite see that it could be read either way depending on which end of the paragraph one starts.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

We will not linger in the swamp. Senator Yeats said I did not accept the recommendations of the broadcasting review committee. I did not accept that particular recommendation, although I accepted some. I did not feel bound to accept all its recommendations. I did not set it up. It consisted of distinguished people. I awaited its report before taking any decisions and, indeed, before setting this legislation in train, I considered it very carefully and, frankly, that is all the Minister is bound to do. I do not think the Minister is bound to accept the report of any such committee and I did not accept this particular one.

Senator Yeats makes what appears to be a good point about whether I consult the majority on whether there should be a National Museum, or whether there should be a National Theatre, and so on. No. But I would not either decide in advance that if I did so consult them they would say "No, away with it". I do not think so. People, if consulted, would be inclined to say "Yes, we should have a National Museum. Even if I never visit it, my children might want to go there and it is a nice thing to have". A recent inquiry into the states of public opinion about the Irish language rather brought out a similar attitude: that people in general were not making use of the Irish language themselves but they did not grudge support for the Irish language.

It is a different thing and, indeed the Senator acknowledges it himself, if what you are determining is the kind of choice of a favourite entertainment that will be available to individuals in their own home. If you are saying: "You might like that but we are going to give you this", then there will be a reaction. Regarding that particular matter, the sort of consultation I have in mind may be innovative but it looks promising and, if we pursue it, it could lead to a better consensus, a better understanding of whatever decision is eventually taken. Otherwise there is a danger that either way it may seem to be imposed on people.

Senator Yeats spoke of the national individuality. I am not sure what Senator Yeats and his colleagues mean exactly when they talk about the national individuality. It is not a self-evident concept. I am not sure whether it includes all the people of Ireland or only an elite of the saved of the people of Ireland who tend to follow one political banner. I am not sure whether it is meant to include, for example, those people in the west, however many of them there may be, who want direct access to a British channel, or the people in the multi-channel area who, habitually, watch that. I should prefer to speak of the people of Ireland. I consider the people of Ireland to be a people — and it is one of their charms — who have a great deal of variety, not one collective individuality, but a great deal of variety with certainly common characteristics. That is really a large debate and I will not get into it.

Senator Yeats says television has enormous influence. Those who discussed the media research on this came out extremely agnostic as to how much influence television actually has and of what kind. It is not a matter on which there is agreement. Senator Yeats made the rather extraordinary point that any feeling in favour of BBC that may exist will have been generated by me. He ascribes to me a charismatic quality I did not know I possessed. I had the opposite feeling at the doorsteps, which I mentioned, where people were attacking me for not providing them with multi-channel TV and for being the possessor of an alleged plot to force upon them a second RTE channel. This is what they thought at the time when I was doing it. So, it is not that way at all.

I will not say anything about Senator Dolan at this ecumenical stage of the debate. Senator Martin, I am glad to find, was reassured to some extent and he asked the question: how is the discovery to be made? That is a good question. We, who are on different sides of this debate, but looking ultimately for the same thing, should try to work out means, and here the university Senators who have spoken, and others interested in these matters, might help us to find appropriate means of both consultation and finding out what the reaction to the consultation is. I would be grateful for any help on that. The methods I proposed are, perhaps, crude but they are methods. They are better than nothing. Senator Martin also seemed to regard it as a bit shady, on my part, to have one personal view on what I would like for myself, and not to say that is what the people ought to have. He regarded me as going in for some rather low form of demagoguery.

Dr. West

Not really.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I jest, as the Senator did. I do not think one's own personal taste can be or should be imposed on people. If one's use of it, to the extent that it may be creative, attracts other people and draws around one people of similar tastes, particularly among young people, that is part of a process of civilisation going on within civilisation. To tell other people: "You like watching that but I like watching this and it is better so you should watch it too"—the Reithian concept—I think I am sufficiently democratic, without being a really wild democrat, not to have that.

Senator Martin was very funny about the choice of live ladies, as it were. As regards those who appeared at the doorstep, or in contacts generally about this in the single-channel area, first of all, what people always tell you is: "We would like all the channels they have in Dublin". Then if you say: "You cannot have all the channels", they say: "Why not and do we not pay the full licence fee?" They give you hell. This is an experience of a Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and any Minister for Posts and Telegraphs who knocked at doors would get this response. If you succeed in convincing them: "You cannot get multi-channel. You can only get one other. Which would you like? You can get a service edited by RTE or, at any rate, edited in Ireland which would bring together for you a selection of other channels and some home material. Or you can get just one live channel from overseas." Bing! They did not care whether it was Mrs. Thatcher or Raquel Welch. Bring her on!

Senator West raised the question: was there a copyright problem in relation to piped television? This is a rather moot problem. I am not quite sure whether there may be a copyright problem, but there is certainly no copyright legislation. There is, of course, a copyright problem in relation either to rebroadcasting BBC or selective outside programming of the kind envisaged under RTE.

Dr. West

I have a horrible thought that we are infringing various copyrights currently.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I cannot say anything about that on this section. He then says that we should strike a balance between the interests of single-and multi-channel viewers and the development of our national TV. I agree with that. It is common ground. The Senator and other Senators may not feel that I am inclined to strike the right balance and that they may be helping me to strike a better balance than I would otherwise have struck. In any case we are all trying to strike that balance.

Question put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 16; Níl, 12.

Tá

• Boland, John.
• Codd, Patrick.
• Daly, Jack.
• Halligan, Brendan.
• Higgins, Michael D.
• Kerrigan, Patrick.
• Kilbride, Thomas.
• Lyons, Michael Dalgan.
• McAuliffe, Timothy.
• Markey, Bernard.
• O'Brien, Andy.
• O'Brien, William.
• O'Toole, Patrick.
• Owens, Evelyn.
• Sanfey, James W.
• Walsh, Mary.

Níl

• Brennan, John J.
• Dolan, Seamus.
• Eachthéirn, Cáit Uí
• Garrett, Jack.
• Hanafin, Des.
• Keegan, Seán.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• Martin, Augustine.
• Ryan, Eoin.
• Ryan, William.
• West, Timothy Trevor.
• Yeats, Michael B.

Tellers: Tá, Senators Sanfey and Halligan; Níl, Senators W. Ryan and Garrett.

Question declared carried.

An Cathaoirleach

I understand it is proposed to adjourn the debate.

Mr. Yeats

When is it proposed to sit again?

Comdt. Sanfey

Tuesday next at 3 p.m., to take the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill.

Mr. Yeats

Is it intended to finish the Committee Stage of this Bill next week?

Comdt. Sanfey

I would hope so. The Minister hopes we will finish it in a few hours.

Mr. Yeats

Next week?

Comdt. Sanfey

Next week.

Mr. Yeats

Will it be after the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill or before?

Comdt. Sanfey

We propose to sit on Tuesday at 3 p.m. and take the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill then.

Mr. Yeats

To finish the Committee Stage of that Bill before we come back to the Broadcasting Bill.

Comdt. Sanfey

Not necessarily to finish the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill.

Mr. Yeats

What I want to know is when we are likely to continue with the Committee Stage of the Broadcasting Bill?

Comdt. Sanfey

On Wednesday, 11th June.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Seanad adjourned at 6.35 p.m. until 3.00 p.m. on Tuesday, 10th June, 1975.