I understand we are now taking Items Nos. 2 and 4 and I would like to remind the House that on the Order of Business this afternoon it was agreed that the Minister would take Items Nos. 2 and 4 together for the purposes of Second Stage.
Radio and Television Bill, 1987: Second Stage.
Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I have great pleasure in introducing the Radio and Television Bill, 1987, and the Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill, 1987, as passed by Dáil Éireann.
The Radio and Television Bill has gone through quite a metamorphosis since it was first introduced in Dáil Éireann last November in the form of the Sound Broadcasting Bill, 1987. I believe, however, that the debate we have had on the Bill both in the Dáil and in public generally has been positive and constructive and that with these two Bills we are approaching the end of a very long road which will bring a whole exciting new era to broadcasting in this country. The opening of the discussion in this House presents me with a useful opportunity to recapitulate on the thinking which lies behind this legislation.
For the better part of 60 years broadcasting in this country has followed the general European mould of being organised and run in the form of a State monopoly. There were sound-principled and practical reasons why broadcasting evolved in this manner. When the possibility of having broadcasting services first emerged in the early part of this century — and we are, of course, talking about sound broadcasting only — it was an unknown quantity. Nevertheless many elements of its potential were clearly recognised: for instance, the fact that it was the most revolutionary form of mass communication since the printing press had been invented; the fact that it would allow for greater and easier access than the printed word; the relative immediacy and one way nature of its communication. The recognition of these elements left a clear awareness that broadcasting could be a major force for good or bad in society — or at least that it would be a very influential medium. In these circumstances it was almost inevitable that Governments would seek to retain some control over how it developed.
There was also, of course, the technical constraint which applied to broadcasting. The technology was quite new and the ability to exploit the radio frequency spectrum which is the basis of broadcasting was very limited. In physical terms the available and usable radio frequencies were very limited which meant that whoever was given access to it had effectively a monopoly. In these circumstances it was not unnatural that the State itself would seek to operate the airwaves on behalf of the general public and endeavour to cater in its broadcasting service for all elements of society. It is from this that the concept of public service broadcasting emerged — a concept which is concerned not so much with who runs the service but with the idea of catering for diversity of tastes and interests including minority interests.
Broadcasting evolved — and indeed was accepted — in this fashion over the next 40 or so years, but the omens of change began to manifest themselves around the sixties. This, I believe, was a period of significant cultural revolution. People in general in the Western World were more educated, more literate, more independent minded, more individualistic and more affluent. They began to question many of the accepted norms, the conventional wisdoms, that had been taken for granted in the preceding era. In the broadcasting sphere they began to question why broadcasting need necessarily remain in the hands of the State or State organisations. The apparent elitism that surrounded broadcasting undoubtedly contributed to this questioning attitude. There is little doubt, in retrospect, that broadcasters took the view that they knew best what was good for the listening audience and you could like it or lump it. Certainly, again in retrospect, there was a whole new potential audience which broadcasters seemed to ignore.
This period also coincided with advances in radio technology. The transistor revolutionised listening habits, resulting in a receiver that was both mobile and cheap and, at the transmission end, the ability to exploit the radio frequency spectrum had also greatly improved while the costs involved in transmission had become quite affordable.
It was the maritime pirate stations that truly shook the establishment broadcasters in the early and mid-sixties. They found a whole new and significant audience which had substantially been ignored before that. The establishment stations tried to react, but it was both too slow and too late. The die had well and truly been cast. The realisation had struck home that there was no longer a justification for the State to retain a monopoly in broadcasting services, that the public themselves were just as capable of becoming involved and of providing services which they themselves wanted
It is this new and changed situation which we as legislators are responding to in this legislation. God knows it has taken us long enough to come to grips with it — many would say that we are ten years too late. If we have been tardy in our response, the delay involved has presented us with the opportunity to go the full hog in responding to the new environment — to deal in one fell swoop not just with the changed sound broadcasting scene but also with the new television broadcasting environment. Heretofore the whole concern has been the creation of a new regime for radio broadcasting but meanwhile a new revolution in television broadcasting — which is every bit as radical as that which took place in the sound broadcasting scene through the sixties and seventies — has been emerging.
Again the revolution in television broadcasting has been technically and technologically driven. The advent of satellite broadcasting in particular is doing away — at least to some extent — with the old constraints of frequency limitations. The extensive development throughout Europe of cable systems and other forms of television retransmission are opening up new opportunities for additional services and greater non-State involvement. The notion of national broadcasting services is becoming less relevant given the international transfrontier dimension which many of the services have.
There are, of course, genuine fears and concerns about these new developments in television broadcasting — fears that there may be a diminution of standards in the quality of television broadcasting which we have come to accept as the norm in Europe generally and concerns that the best of what we have may be diluted in the more robust competitive environment that we face. These matters have been recognised at international level and both the EC and Council of Europe are currently working on the introduction of international legal instruments which will ensure that certain minimum standards and safeguards are established for all transfrontier television services.
That said, however, we must recognise that the trend towards more television services — operated in the main by private or non-state concerns — is both inevitable and inexorable. Many people may not at this stage be overly-impressed by what they see coming out of satellites but I personally think that we should not be unduly despondent about these services. I believe the phase they are currently going through is almost inevitable — they are very much the pioneers of the new broadcasting era and are testing the waters. A lot of investment has gone into just getting them off the ground and it will take some time before true quality will begin to emerge. One need only make the comparison with our own national broadcaster, RTE, when it started off, for those Senators who can remember.
While a lot of concern tends to be expressed that all these new services may lead to a reduction in the overall quality of television services available, my own view is that the drift will be upwards in terms of the quality of service. The fact is that we in Europe have probably been spoiled by the excellence of our broadcast services and if these new services are to have any hope of gaining mass audiences I believe — and experience suggests — that their quality will inevitably improve.
However, the main point I want to make in the context of this Bill is that we are facing into a whole new environment in the television broadcasting scene where a lot more external channels are going to become available to the public. This is the context in which the Government concluded that we should seek to increase the options available at national level and to redress, to some extent at least, the imbalance between the number of external services likely to be available here and the number of national services. In addition, there have been clear indications — just as there were in the sound broadcasting sector over ten years ago — that there are people in the public sector who wish to and are capable of becoming involved in the television broadcasting scene.
This then brings me to the fundamental objective of this proposed legislation. Its primary purpose is to create an environment and framework which will allow individuals and organisations the maximum opportunity to become involved in broadcasting and to meet and respond to public demands and requirements in the broadcasting sphere. In this regard it is not the function of the State to make the services we are talking about happen — it seeks only to provide the framework and the opportunity to allow the public to make them happen. It is for this reason that we, as legislators, must resist the temptation to dictate to the public — through this legislation — precisely what they can have. It is essential that the legislation we adopt should be flexible, that it should allow a sufficient degree of latitude to let the public themselves decide what they want to hear and see, and that it will allow for the emergence of diversity in the services to be established.
I think the Bill before the Seanad strikes the right balance between, on the one hand, the general orientation we want to give to the proposed services and standards we expect from them and, on the other hand, the degree of flexibility we are giving both to the Commission and to potential broadcasters to enable a diverse range of services to emerge.
One of the major elements of discussion when I first produced my legislative proposals last November concerned the absence of an independent authority to select franchises for the services and to regulate the services. At that time we were concerned only with establishing a regime for radio broadcasting and I was less than convinced that such services actually required the degree of regulation which would warrant the creation of a new State authority. I was also concerned, on the basis of detailed costings, about the financial viability of such an authority. While I took due account of the concerns that had been expressed in this area, it was primarily the introduction of the television element into the Bill that has greatly strengthened the justification for having an authority and should also secure its financial viability.
Before going on to deal with the various provisions in the Bill, I should perhaps explain at the outset the rationale that lies behind the structures proposed and in particular the nature of the relationships between the Minister and the proposed Independent Radio and Television Commission on the one hand and between the Commission and the broadcasters on the other.
The original Bill envisaged a straightforward licensing arrangement between the Minister and broadcasters. The fundamental reason for having any form of licensing for broadcasting services stems from the frequency management obligations of the State at national and international level. If it was not for the physical constraint of limited radio frequency availability, there would be no reason for the State to be involved in licensing radio, any more than it has an involvement in the print media.
The licensing function — which is the frequency management function — still remains the responsibility of the Minister. It is not a function that could simply be delegated to the Commission because first of all its origins go back to the various Telegraph Acts of the last century which vested a monopoly in the Minister — and his antecedents — in the transmission of messages and to the Wireless Telegraphy Acts which vest the licensing function in the Minister. Secondly, the whole radio-communications area is governed by numerous international conventions and treaties for which Governments are answerable. Thirdly, broadcasting frequencies are just one small element of the radio frequency spectrum and there is an inter-relationship between the way broadcast frequencies and other areas of the spectrum, such as aeronautical and mobile communications, are managed. It is essential, therefore, that frequency management be vested in one body alone. In the vast majority of countries in the world this function is vested in central Government. The only practical alternative would be the American model of vesting responsibility for managing the whole of the spectrum in one body — the Federal Communications Commission in their case. To achieve that here one would effectively have to convert the Department of Communications into a semi-State body.
Under the proposals in the Bill, the frequency management function of issuing licences remains with the Minister. A different form of relationship must then be established between the Commission and radio station operators. The relationship adopted is a contractual one. The Commission enters into contracts with persons to provide the broadcast service. The Minister then issues a licence to the Commission covering the frequency to be used and other technical parameters and the benefits of this licence are conveyed to the broadcasting contractor through his contract with the Commission. This ensures, inter alia, that the broadcaster will not be in conflict with the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926, which requires every person who is in possession of and who maintains, operates, etc., transmitting equipment, to have a licence.
I would like now to go through the main provisions of the Bill. Sections 1 and 2 are routine provisions containing the Short Title and definitions of terms used throughout the Bill. Section 2 deals with the establishment of the Independent Radio and Television Commission as a full body corporate. In this regard it is appropriate to refer here to the Schedule to the Bill which sets out the detail of the constitution of the Commission.
The introduction of the Commission as an independent authority meets the primary concerns voiced following the introduction of my original proposals. Its constitution is precisely similar to that proposed for the Local Radio Commission in the previous Government's Local Radio Bill, 1985. In particular it will be noted that the Commission must be comprised of people who have expetise or shown capacity in "media and commercial affairs, radio communications engineering, trade union affairs, administration or social, cultural, educational or community activities" and the membership can only be dismissed for stated reasons and then only if resolutions are passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas. This is similar to the position of the RTE Authority under the Broadcasting Authority Acts and has the effect of greatly strengthening the independence of the Commission. Apart from these significant features the provisions include all of the conventional and routine legislative requirements involved in setting up a separate independent State Authority. These include: detail concerning the appointment of the members of the Commission; the conditions of service applying to Chairman of the Commission; the remuneration and terms of office of members of the Commission; disclosure by member of Commission of interest in proposed contract; seal of the Commission; meetings and procedure of the Commission; staff of the Commission; conditions of service, remuneration of staff; membership of Houses of the Oireachtas or European Parliament; superannuation of staff of the Commission. The Schedule also contains provisions relating to the duty of the Commission with respect of its revenue, borrowings, investment, accounts and audits and annual report to the Minister.
Section 4 deals with the functions of the Commission together with the powers and duties being imposed on it to fulfil those functions. The basic function being imposed on it is, of course, that of arranging for the provision of new sound broadcasting services and a new television service and the regulation of those services. I think we must be clear-headed and straight thinking on this question. For instance, various suggestions had been put forward that all sorts of peripheral and promotional functions not all directly related to broadcasting services — should be imposed on it. Such proposals simply serve to complicate the task of the Commission which will be difficult enough and to turn it into an unnecessarily unwieldy body which would have to spread its efforts in a variety of directions. What we are after is a modest organisation with a relatively small number of staff and which will not be a burden either on the services it is to regulate or indeed on the State — with a clear-cut job of selecting people to provide broadcast services and regulating those services. We furthermore want to leave its mandate in precise but flexible terms so as to enable it to develop its own policies in relation to how best it should fulfil its task. The section goes on to deal with the nature of the relationship between the Commission and broadcasters and the role of the Minister in this relationship which I have already elaborated upon in detail.
The various other provisions of the section are those which are deemed appropriate to include under the functions of the Commission and include specifically: a duty on the Commission to ensure that programme contractors comply with the provisions of the Act, subsection (7); a power to require programme contractors to make recordings of their programmes and make such recordings available to the Commission, subsection (8); a power to require contractors to arrange for the provision of services on behalf of Ministers of the Government. There is a similar provision in the Broadcasting Authority Acts relating to RTE and in the Local Radio Bill, 1985, and it is used to allow Ministers from time to time to make public announcements of national importance; a provision requiring contractors to cooperate with the Gardaí, local authorities and health boards in the dissemination of information to the public in the event of major emergencies; a power enabling the Minister to suspend licences and operate stations directly or have them operate in accordance with directions issued by him in the event of any emergency declared under Section 10 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926. A similar provision is written into all forms of licences issued by the Minister and is intended to be used to enable the Government to take control of all forms of radio communications in the event of a major emergency such as a war situation or other major civil disorder. The power in question has never been used.
One of the major new elements of transparency introduced into the Bill is in subsection (6) which allows any member of the public to inspect every licence issued to the Commission in respect of every broadcast service established. There is a further provision later on in the Bill allowing any member of the public to inspect and purchase a copy of any contract between the Commission and programme contractor. Section 5 deals with the principles and mechanism by which applications for sound broadcasting contracts will be sought.
Under the arrangement proposed, the Commission will, by means of a public notice in the newspapers, invite on a general basis expressions of interest from the public in securing sound broadcasting contracts. They will not be applications for contracts per se. The objective is to enable the Commission to “test the waters” with a view to identifying the extent of the interest in various parts of the country in providing services and the different ideas that exist regarding the type of services likely to emerge and the most suitable geographic configurations for radio services. This will better help the Commission, when it eventually advertises the actual franchises, to specify prospectuses for services which have a realistic prospect of emerging in any area and to let potential applicants have a better idea of the additional franchises — e.g. town stations, low power community stations — it may envisage offering in any particular catchment area.
The Commission will then synthesise the responses received under the foregoing process and submit a report to the Minister which will give an indication of the extent, kind and catchment areas of services which are likely to emerge. The Minister will then, after consultation with the Commission, specify the areas in respect of which applications for franchises should be sought. This is necessary if for no other reason than that the Minister must ensure that he has appropriate frequencies with appropriate associated parameters to offer for any proposed service. In this regard it must be borne in mind that every frequency assignment available to this country under the relevant international frequency plans has a specific set of geographic co-ordinates associated with it and the degree of flexibility in the location of transmitters is quite limited. It would be pointless for the Commission to advertise a franchise for a particular combination of county, town or townland areas without being sure that there is a suitable frequency assignment available for that area.
When the Minister has specified the areas in respect of which franchises are to be sought, including the whole country for the purpose of a new national station, the Commission will then proceed to invite applications in accordance with the mechanics proposed in the original Bill —i.e., by means of public advertisement.
It is also specified in subsection (6) of this section that the Commission may indicate when offering franchises that it will lay emphasis on one or more of the criteria outlined in the subsequent section and on which it will be making its judgment in the selection of franchises. For instance, as a consequence of its findings under the initial "expressions of interest" process, it may find that in one instance it will place more emphasis on the "community" element or Irish language element, while in the case of another station the emphasis would be on the quality, range and type of programme proposed.
Section 6 is probably the most important section in the Bill and deals with the criteria which the Commission will apply in determining who should get a franchise in any instance. It is these criteria which will most seriously influence the nature of the services which are likely to emerge because every intending applicant will have to address the considerations that under lie them. At the same time, the critical element of flexibility is this — the criteria are framed in a manner which leaves plenty of scope for intending applicants to find imaginative and inventive new approaches to offer in their broadcasting services, thus leading we hope to the varieties of services which will emerge. A number of the criteria are, of course, self-evident and indeed were featured in the 1985 Bill in this area. We have, however, made a few additions.
Criterion (a), for instance, is a new one relating to the character of an applicant. There has been a fair amount of discussion in this context as to whether those who have been engaged in illegal broadcasting should be entitled to apply for or be granted franchises under the terms of this Bill. I have quite frankly no great sympathy for those who have broken the law in this area. At the same time, I think we have to recognise that the fault does not all lie on one side. While not in any way excusing illegal operators for their actions, the fact is that we as legislators must accept part of the blame for our tardiness in not providing a legal framework for legitimate radio services despite the manifest demand and need for such a framework which has existed for ten years. We must also accept responsibility for the fact that, in the absence of legislation to allow legal radio, the practice followed by myself and by my predecessors was to take legal action only against those illegal stations found to be causing interference to other authorised users of wireless telegraphy apparatus. Otherwise there was no real willingness on the part of any Government in recent years to actually close down illegal stations.
At the same time we are affording the Commission the opportunity to take past history in this area — as well indeed as in other areas — into account in determining the suitability of any applicant to be granted a franchise and whatever decisions the Commission will ultimately make in this regard, I think the message will have gone out loud and clear from the legislative that those who have been involved in illegal broadcasting will have no bonus marks to gain under the criterion.
The other particular provision under this section to which I would draw attention is criterion (h) which specifically highlights the potential community dimension of radio broadcasting. I always felt even before proposing this provision that there was ample scope within the Bill for community based radio services to emerge — particularly on the basis of the large number of low-power radio frequencies which are available, which are very suited to neighbourhood type broadcasting and in which clearly there was never likely to be any significant commercial interest. However, I was impressed by submissions made by the National Association of Community Broadcasters and felt that a specific provision along the lines of criterion (h) — which I believe captures the essential elements of what community broadcasting is about — could usefully be added to the Bill.
Section 7 deals with the circumstances in which licences may be varied by the Minister. As I explained earlier, the Commission will enter into contracts with radio station operators and the Minister will, in respect of each contract entered into, issue a licence to the Commission specifying the radio frequency and other technical parameters to be used by the station in question. I would emphasise that these licences are solely technical documents. I issue similar licences in respect of RTE's transmitting stations and if Senators wish to see what they actually look like they are all available in the Library here.
There may be circumstances in which it may be necessary for the Minister to vary the terms of a licence issued in respect of a particular contract and these are set out in the section. The circumstances relate in the main to matters pertaining to good frequency management or the safety or security of property or persons. An appeals or representational process must be complied with in circumstances where the Minister proposes to make the change in question. The occasions when this process does not apply would be where prompt action is required involving the safety or security of persons or property — for instance, where a frequency of power level needs to be changed because it is interfering with an air navigation system — or where the request for the change come from the Commission or contractor.
Section 8 deals with the granting of short-term franchises for radio stations and with franchises for institutions. The objective of subsection (1) is to grant franchises of a short term nature — for a period not exceeding 14 days whether consecutive or otherwise in any 12 months. The provision is intended primarily to accommodate persons or groups who may wish to set up a broadcasting service to coincide with various festivals throughout the country. We have had occasional applications for such a facility over the years but have not been able to accommodate them.
Subsection (2) deals with the possibility that educational or hospital institutions may wish to set up low-power stations within the curtilage of their own premises. Radio stations of a sort within hospitals have been an established feature for some years and usually work on a closed-circuit-wired-basis. Strictly speaking, because there was no "over-the-air" transmission involved in these systems, they did not need licences. More than likely, most of them will continue to operate in this fashion. On the other hand, one could envisage a low-power service being established in a campus like UCD, Belfield, where there are a lot of separate buildings, etc., to cover. Of course no radio service stops exactly at a particular boundary — low-power stations will probably have a four to six mile radial coverage — so one could envisage perhaps a distance learning service being established within the general vicinity of an educational institution. Presumably the operators of such a service would be happy to supply — sell — recordings of such programming to other stations.
Subsection (3) provides that the 20 per cent quota of news and current affairs programming will not apply to these services because of their specialist nature. Subsection (4) provides that the elaborate tendering and assessment process for stations established under the Bill will not apply to these particular stations — again either because of their short duration or their specialist nature.
Section 9 deals with the programming obligations being imposed on broadcasters and in the area of objectivity and impartiality, non-incitement to crime etc., are similar to the obligations which apply to RTE. It will be noted that the sound broadcaster is precluded from offering his own views — in effect from editorialising — on news and matters of current debate. This was added to the Bill by way of amendment in the Dáil. There was some concern that such a provision could run counter to the "freedom of expression" provisions of Article 40 of the Constitution but it is considered that the risk is small.
This section also imposes an obligation on stations to carry specified minimum amounts of news and current affairs programming. One of the important reasons for establishing additional broadcast services is to encourage great plurality in sources of news, information and matters of current debate which is very desirable in a democracy. I do not think the requirement is in any way excessive. For instance, most stations tend to carry a news headline feature on the hour and over a 12 hour day this would consume the better part of an hour. Putting together at least another hour of current affairs programming should not be beyond the resources of even the most modest stations. These figures are, of course, minima and we would strongly hope that many of the new services will go beyond those minimum levels.
It will be noted, too, that we have allowed the Commission the flexibility to grant derogations from this requirement where it is satisfied that there is a reasonable plurality of sources of news and current affairs programmes already available in an area. This is designed to allow for the development of special interest stations in an area. This provision is made in section 15 which we will come to shortly. Finally subsections (3) and (4) of this section require the Commission to draw up codes of practice in relation to these areas and impose an obligation on broadcasters to comply with such codes.
Section 10 is a straightforward provision allowing the carrying of advertisements on the new services. The Commission will again be required to draw up codes of practice governing this area which will be aimed essentially at protecing the consumer. It will be noted that there is a prohibition on the carrying of advertisements relating to religious or political ends or which have any relating to an industrial dispute. A similar provision applies to RTE under the Broadcasting Authority Acts.
The maximum amount of time which may be devoted to advertising on the services is specified at 15 per cent of transmission time subject to a maximum of ten minutes in any hour. This is consciously higher than the limit currently operated by RTE because these stations will not have the benefit of licence fee revenue which RTE have. In this regard it is important to say that RTE in the first instance set their own limit which is then subject to my approval. I would expect, as is the case with RTE, that few if any of the services will be able to utilise the maximum limits fully but I think, nevertheless, that we should allow them the flexibility proposed.
Section 11 deals with the treatment of complaints. The first point to be borne in mind is that it is the new Commission which has overall responsibility for ensuring that every broadcaster complies with the provisions of the Act. This is stated explicitly in section 4, subsection (7). Thus, for example, it can be taken that, if complaints come to the Independent Radio and Television Commission about the services being provided, the Commission will check them out. The provisions of sections 11 are in effect supplementary and add generally to the transparency of the Act.
Subsection (11) imposes a clear-cut obligation on the broadcaster himself to treat seriously any complaints which are not of a frivolous or vexatious nature and to maintain full and proper records of complaints received, the reply issued or action taken. It is, of course, proper that complaints should always be directed in the first instance to the broadcaster because he is the person responsible for the programme complained of and he should have an opportunity to justify his programme.
Subsection (2) provides that a broadcaster must, on request from the Commission, make available for inspection by the Commission all records kept relating to complaints. This will facilitate a follow-up by the commission in relation to complaints sent on appeal or otherwise to it.
The expectation and hope is that the combination of the regulatory and overseeing role of the Independent Radio and Television Commission, combined with the broadcaster's own sense of responsibility, should constitute an adequate mechanism to ensure that any complaints about service are treated satisfactorily and seriously. There is no reason to believe that this will not be the case. For instance, in the ten years of operation of illegal stations, no more than a handful of complaints have been received by the Department regarding programmes, as distinct from other problems such as radio interference, etc. Nevertheless, if it transpires with the passage of time that the mechanisms are not proving adequate, provision is made in subsections (3) and (4) to enable the Minister to extend the ambit of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission to embrace complaints relating to the new services. A similar arrangement was envisaged in the Local Radio Bill, 1985. It is to be stressed, however, that the hope is that this power will never have to be used — first, because it could amount to a form of duplication of functions and, secondly, because of the logistical difficulties it would create for the Broadcasting Complaints Commission in terms of the facilities, staffing etc. it would need.
The following subsections are consequential provisions which are needed if this power should have to be used. Section 12 provides that any order made by the Minister under section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Act in relation to RTE will apply equally to any of the services established under this Act. I appreciate, of course, that there are many different views about the efficacy of section 31 but the logic of the situation dictates that if the Government of the day determine that such an order is needed it should apply equally to these services.
Section 13 deals with the power of the Commission to conduct investigations into the affairs of sound broadcasting contractors. Subsection (1) gives the Commission authority, for any of the reasons subsequently specified, to conduct an investigation into the operational, programming, financial, technical or other affairs of a broadcasting contractor and requires that contractor to co-operate in such an investigation. Subsection (2) enables the Commission to appoint a person to conduct the investigation on its behalf. Because the intention is that the Commission will be a small organisation — it will have to be if it is to be viable — it may from time to time have to appoint consultants to do those investigations.
The grounds for conducting an investigation are also specified in subsection (2) and are: (a) if there are reasonable grounds for believing that a contractor is not providing a service in accordance with the terms of his contract; (b) where a station is causing interference to other radio communications services and such services are thereby injuriously affected.
It should be noted that it is not the intention or wish that the Commission should have to resort to this power with any frequency. There will presumably be constant dialogue between the Commission and station operators and, indeed, where it is perceived that a station is going off the road somewhat with respect to its obligations the Commission will, through encouragement, support and dialogue, seek to get the operator back on the road. It would only be in the event of persistent non-compliance with obligations — and where dialogue and discussion between the Commission and the broadcaster were getting nowhere — that the Commission might find it necessary to invoke the full powers under this section to conduct a major investigation.
The position should be likewise with respect to any interference problems that a broadcaster's transmitter may cause. The nature of radio is such that even with the most careful planning, unforeseen interference problems can arise and most of these problems will be resolvable on a commonsense co-operative basis. Again, if persistent complaints of interference problems or non-compliance with technical requirements arise, the Commission may find it has no option but to have a full-scale technical investigation carried out, for which it will almost inevitably have to appoint an engineering consultant.
There will almost inevitably have to be close liaison between the Commission and technical areas of the Department of Communications in relation to any radio interference problems that arise because more than likely any interference caused to non-broadcast services will in the first instance be notified to the Department. Incidentally, if at the end of the day an interference problem cannot be resolved, the Department may have to vary or adjust the technical parameters of the frequency assignment granted to the station operator. This is one of the circumstances in which the Minister may have to vary the terms of a licence under the provisions of section 7 of the Bill.
Subsection (3) of this section provides that any costs reasonably incurred by the Commission in connection with an investigation shall be borne by the broadcasting contractor concerned. We think that this is not unreasonable given the context in which investigations are likely to be conducted. As I said, the provision is primarily a threat and something which would be used only as a last resort, i.e., when normal dialogue and discussions have failed to secure a remedy by the sound broadcaster.
Subsection (4) enables the Commission to require a broadcasting contractor to carry out a market research survey of audience reaction to a radio service and to furnish the results to the Commission. The Commission will have a say in the appointment of the person to conduct such surveys to ensure that proper professional standards and independence prevail.
Here again this is not considered to be an unduly onerous obligation to impose on contractors, because the likelihood is that many of them will have to carry out surveys of audience ratings anyway in order to persuade advertisers to buy advertising time from them. The provision in question will enable the Commission to ensure that aspects of concern to it relating to broadcast services are embraced in such surveys.
Section 14 deals with the terms and conditions of contracts between the Commission and sound broadcasting contractors. Subsection (1) is a "catch-all" provision enabling the Commission to prescribe such terms and conditions as it thinks appropriate and specifies in its contracts. Subsection (2) deals with specific items which it can be expected will be included in contracts.
Subsection (3) is an alternative option to subsections (2) (c) and (d) and the one which is more likely to be adopted by the Commission. It allows the Commission to include a clause in a contract enabling a contractor to assign a contract or an interest therein, or to make a change in his Memorandum or Articles of Association, or to allow a change in ownership of a company which has a contract but only with the consent of the Commission. In determining whether to grant such consent it must have regard to the selection criteria specified in section 6. The most likely scenario here is that, in order to obtain a fresh injection of capital for a station, there may have to be some change in the share ownership of a company. If the restructured company intends to continue to provide the same type of service under which it was granted its franchise, it would seem reasonable that the Commission would give its consent to the change in question.
Subsection (4) provides for the inclusion of other basic conditions in contracts. Finally subsection (5) has been included in the Bill to increase its transparency, that is, all contracts entered into shall be open to inspection at the Commission's offices and a copy may be purchased for such sum, if any, as the Commission may reasonably require. Thus, the public will be fully aware of the obligations which each contractor must fulfil and, in particular, will be able to guage if the service he is providing lives up to the undertakings he gave.
There are, of course, numerous other "terms and conditions" of contracts which could be included in this section but the objective has been to concentrate only on the obvious and more critical ones. The more one spells out detailed conditions, the more inflexible and unwieldy the Bill becomes. This is the objective of the "catch-all" provision in subsection (1). The Commission itself will be in the best position, having regard to the circumstances of each particular franchise, to determine the appropriate additional conditions that need to be specified. It is important, therefore, that it be permitted to have this flexibility.
I mentioned section 15 earlier when discussing the news and current affairs programme quotas. This section is the one which enables the Commission to grant a derogation, either in whole or in part, from the quota requirement.
Section 16 provides that the Minister may, at the request of the Commission and after consultation with RTE, require RTE to co-operate with sound broadcasters in the use of any mast, tower, site or other installation or facility needed in connection with the transmission facilities for radio services established under the Act. Any such co-operation shall be rendered on a commercial basis.
The expectation would be that an operator who seeks a facility will work out directly with RTE the terms on which it would be made available and this would simply be given an imprimatur by the Minister. If agreement on terms cannot be reached the Minister, after consultation with RTE and the Commission, who would be acting on behalf of the contractor, determines the appropriate amount to be paid. It should be noted that, while legally the Minister would be the arbiter, there would be nothing to prevent him from appointing and taking advice from a professional arbiter.
The primary reason for this provision, which is must be stressed relates only to transmission facilities, is that RTE already have access to some of the premium transmitter sites in the country. Furthermore, many of the frequencies assigned to this country are co-ordinated for use in the proximity of RTE sites.
There should, however, be no unrealistic expectations about this provision. In many instances the scope for RTE towers taking additional facilities is not great, at least not without some extra strengthening structurally of the towers in question. Likewise, RTE must be able to insist that any new installations they might agree to shall not cause any interference to RTE's own services. Finally, careful arrangements will have to be made relating to the maintenance of any facilities granted.
We come now to Part IV of the Bill, sections 17 and 18, which deal with the proposed third television channel. I have already dealt with the thinking that lies behind our decision to go for a third television channel in this country. It stems from a belief that the logic of what we are doing in the radio area, which is opening up choice and new opportunities for non-State involvement, applies with equal force in the television area and the fact, indeed, that in the context of the major developments in television broadcasting which are taking place all over Europe there are perhaps even more compelling reasons as to why we should seek to open new opportunities in television at national level.
The trend in television broadcasting is moving very much in a supra-national direction with the development of satellite broadcasting services and the major expansion of cable networks all over Europe. The public in the various countries of Europe are going to be more and more exposed to external influences in television. I have said before that this is not something we should be afraid of and that in many respects it is to be welcomed. It presents a great opportunity to improve European cohesion, to expose us to views, perspectives, horizons and aspects of European culture which would otherwise not be available to us.
It can help us to better appreciate the diversity of culture which makes up the nations of Europe while, at the same time, helping us to appreciate even more those aspects of our own culture which give us our own unique identity. In this context, however, we think it is important that we strengthen broadcasting choice at national level. By establishing another channel in this country we can redress to some extent the imbalance between the number of external services which are and will increasingly be available here and offer our public an extra measure of domestically based choice.
I believe it is important that we should be flexible in the legislative framework we are creating for the emergence of this new service. We must not strait-jacket it but rather leave it sufficient scope to be imaginative and inventive. I believe, for instance, that concerns that a "lowest common denominator" type service will emerge are unwarranted. That simply will not work because the reality is that there will be plenty of other stations, with probably more resources than a third Irish channel will ever have, who will be better able to provide purely "entertainment" orientated services. If this new service is to carve out an indentity and audience niche for itself, it will have to set out to capture the Irish audience from the plethora of choice it will have. RTE have shown how this can be done, that is, by concentrating on home-produced material and on material with which an Irish audience has a strong affinity and which will not be found on external services. This in my view is the way that a third channel will be successful.
It will be noted that we are consciously limiting ourselves to one new channel only. This is because our primary objective is to have a third channel which will essentially be national in nature. This does not, however, preclude the service from having a regional or local dimension. It is important, however, given the relatively small Irish audience, that there should be co-ordination between any local television development and the national service. Thus, for example, if it was desired to have a local element in, say, the Dublin or Cork cable system, this would be integrated into the national service by means of a local opt-out. A formal arrangement would have to be established between the parties concerned to achieve this integration and the effect of this integration would be to bring the local element under the ambit of the networked service and this under the ambit of the Commission. However, so far as the Commission would be concerned it would still only be dealing with a single third TV service which is the way the Bill is structured.
As to the provisions in the Bill, the position is that all the relevant provisions relating to the process of selecting and regulating sound broadcasters will also apply to the television programme service contractor such as for example: the process for inviting applications for the franchise, the criteria to be taken into account, the requirements of objectivity and impartiality, the provisions relating to advertising, the application of orders under section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Acts, the provisions relating to complaints and investigations into the operations of contractors, the terms and conditions of contracts.
The general programming mandate proposed for the service is similar to that which applies to RTE. The RTE mandate has been adopted because it amounts to a statement of the ethos and values which it would be desired to have reflected in the new station and, yet, also has the flexibility and generality which will give scope to the new station to find new inventive ways to reflect those values.
We have not, it will be noted, extended the 20 per cent quota requirement in relation to news and current affairs to the station primarily because it has to be borne in mind that television costs, particularly in the news area, involve a much higher order of cost than for radio. In these circumstances it was felt that a more flexible approach should be adopted, i.e., the requirement should be to carry a "reasonable proportion" of news and current affairs material, that proportion to be determined by the Commission from time to time in the light of the state of development of the service.
We are also, in subsection (4) of section 18, proposing that the new service should carry a "reasonable proportion" of programming of Irish and EC origin. Our primary concern in this regard, quite frankly, is for programmes of Irish origin but our EC obligations preclude a purely national discrimination. There are two dimensions to this provision. First, we want to see that in the totality of the service a reasonable proportion of the programming is of Irish or EC origin and, secondly, that a reasonable proportion of that material comes from independent production. Thus, the Commission may prescribe a proportion to meet the first requirement and a second proportion which can either be in addition to or part of the original proportion in relation to the second requirement.
Flexible terminology is essential in this paragraph to enable the Commission to take account not just of the state of development of the TV service itself but also of the audio-visual production sector in the country. In fact, the terminology adopted here is similar to that which has just been adopted in relation to the same area in a proposed Council of Europe Convention on Transfrontier Broadcasting. It must, furthermore, be borne in mind that it has taken RTE some 28 years to reach a stage where their home produced output is just approaching 50 per cent. I believe one can be confident, however, that the new station will have to start off at a higher rate and make more rapid progress than RTE did because all the evidence suggests that the station will only succeed in capturing an audience if there is a substantial content of home produced material on it.
Part V of the Bill contains essentially routine provisions. In section 19 we are simply up-dating the definition of the term "broadcast" and adapting it to terminology used internationally by organisations such as the International Telecommunications Union.
Section 20 enables the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to make grants not exceeding £500,000 in total to the Commission in its first two years of operation. The financial viability of the Commission has always been a matter of concern, particularly in the first year or so of its operations before it begins to build up an adequate income stream from contracts. The danger would be that it could build up significant debts in that initial period with the result that it would be forced to impose perhaps crippling levies on the new services.
It has been an essential principle of the Government's approach to these new services that they should not involve new financial impositions on the State. Accordingly, the grants for the commission have to come from an existing revenue source and the source in question is cable television licence fees which heretofore had been paid over to RTE. The cable television licence levy was recently reduced from 15 per cent to 5 per cent and it had, in fact, been intended from 1990 to cease such payments to RTE and retain them for the Exchequer.
Before I finish I should like to address myself briefly to the Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill, 1987, which is also before us and which is a necessary concomitant piece of legislation to the Radio and Television Bill, 1987. In terms of its principles I presume it will find general acceptance in this House. Indeed the Bill is essentially the same as that circulated in the House in 1985, subject to a small number of mainly technical changes which were made in the Dáil.
The purpose of the Bill is to create a series of new offences relating to the activities of illegal broadcasters and those who aid and abet them. Part of the reason the pirate stations have been able to flourish is that we have had to rely upon the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926, to take action against them. While that Act was a very far-seeing Act and is still very relevant to all forms of radio communications today, I am afraid its drafters did not quite see all the problems we would be faced with some 60 years down the line.
Examples of the offences and penalties which will apply under this Bill are as follows: to knowingly suffer or permit an unlicensed broadcast to take place from a premises or vehicle; to make available a premises or vehicle from which an unlicensed broadcast is to be made; to keep, have, supply, instal, repair or maintain wireless telegraphy apparatus for unlicensed broadcasting purposes; to supply film or record material, to make a literary, dramatic or musical work, to make an artistic work, to participate in the making of film or record material for use in unlicensed broadcasts; to participate in unlicensed broadcasts as directors, producers, announcer or otherwise; to advertise in or to publish programme schedules of unlicensed broadcasts.
The penalties for all of these offences, on summary conviction, will be £1,000 maximum and-or three months imprisonment and £20,000 and-or two years imprisonment on conviction on indictment.
Using or allowing one's telephone or electricity service to be used to promote, further or facilitate a business engaged in illegal broadcasts will also be an offence. In addition to these new offences we are taking the opportunity to up-date all the penalty provisions of the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926, and also to deal with some anomalies and difficulties which we have found through experience in implementing the Act.
Unless Senators wish me to do so I do not propose to give a section by section introduction to the whole Bill although I have gone through it in fair detail. We will have the opportunity to go through it in much greater detail on Committee Stage and any clarifications that may be needed can be given at that Stage. I look forward to a constructive debate on these two Bills and I commend them to the House.
I would like to thank the Minister for his comprehensive explanation of the Bills before us. It certainly will help us in our consideration of them. We are all very glad that, after many years of debate and many years of different approaches to this sort of legislation, we finally have legislation before us and a chance to debate it. It is now quite a few months since the original Sound Broadcasting Bill was published. At that time I made some notes on it but those have become very irrelevant now because during the debate in the Dáil the Sound Broadcasting Bill, as it was known then, was changed to the Radio and Television Bill and some major changes were made, mainly the introduction of the Commission and also the setting up of the provision to allow for the third national channel.
Many people in the Dáil from the Opposition benches, and indeed many people in the media, were slightly worried about the original Bill in that they could envisage what they called at the time Radio Fianna Fáil being set up and perhaps even his master's voice. I would not be able to comment on who his master was. That has now been changed due to the attitude of the Minister. I compliment him on it. I welcome this Radio and Television Bill. My comments on it, whilst not as detailed as the Minister's, will be more or less on the whole structure of the radio and television system as it is at present.
It is good that we have finally decided to address this matter because over the past number of years the public decided for us that they were not totally happy with the radio and television services that were available to them. The support which the alternative radios had, whether the high powered pirates of a more commercial nature or, indeed, the small local radio community services, certainly indicated that there was a demand for this. It is only right that we should address it now.
The situation had become very messy. We obviously had legislation to deal with illegal broadcasting but, as the Minister said, it was only in cases where stations were interfering with RTE, ambulance services, or police services, etc., that we decided to prosecute them. That is fairly typical of many things in this country and often a nod is as good as a wink. The fact that these people were allowed to continue in an illegal fashion, while it may not have been the perfect thing to do, was probably more realistic than knocking them all off the air in one swoop because the public had decided that there was a demand for them. As the Minister said perhaps it was the Houses of the Oireachtas who were wrong in taking so long to come up with a solution to the problem. The people have definitely decided that there must be a better and a larger choice. This Bill will certainly help to provide that within a legal framework as soon as possible.
There is a difficulty when we refer to the alternative system of radio which we have had up to now because there are two clearly distinct systems. On the one hand, there are the commercially orientated pirate radio stations. In most major cities there are two or three pirate radio stations. Throughout the rural areas they are in operations as well. These stations are based entirely on a profit motive. Admittedly, they are doing the job very well. They seem to have technology which would put RTE to shame. Their presenters are superbly trained and their advertising is done in a most professional fashion. The result of this is that their listenership has increased dramatically. Most people consider them to be almost on a par with RTE. That is as a result of the Oireachtas allowing them three or four years of unfettered broadcasting.
We will now have to face up to the difficulty of making a choice between, in some areas, one of these very professional upmarket stations and, on the other hand, a more community orientated service where their technology would not be as good, their presenters would not be as well trained. They would be operating on a voluntary basis and would not have the facilities to compete on a par with the pirate stations. The Bill makes provision for many of these low frequency local stations. The Minister mentioned room for up to 100 of them, perhaps, throughout the country based presumably in the smaller towns and, indeed, in some of the smaller cities. One of the worries I have is in relation to the proposal that we might have a radio station on a county basis which would not work very well. The danger of this would be that most of them would be supplying the same market; most of them would be offering the same type of programming system.
Some of the illegal radio stations based entirely on community involvement, on voluntary presenters and on a non-profit basis in my area would probably be ruled out of the smaller type of service. At present they have transmitters which allow them to broadcast up to a 25 to 30 mile radius so they could not be considered for one of the ten miles radius licences. Neither would they have the facilities to operate on a county at large basis. Many of these radio stations are operating on the borders of two or three counties and their advertising market branches out into two or three counties. Their listenership branches out into two or three counties and their programmes involve people in two or three counties based quite near their transmitter.
I would like to think that there could be some provision to ensure that a station like this could be set up with a radius of 35 to 40 miles but not based entirely on a county system. I know of one case in my area, the North Cork Community Radio, which deals with north Cork, south Limerick, east Kerry and has a large listenership in that area.
On a point of information, is the Senator referring to an illegal station?
I am referring to a community radio station.
An illegal station.
Having regard to what has happened up to now I presume we would have to consider the 200 or 300 stations throughout the country to be illegal. I certainly think that the people who have been putting in many hours of voluntary work with no financial reward and who have provided great entertainment for their community, and provided people within their own community with a chance to express their views in a fashion which they would not previously have been able to should not be considered to have broken the law in too serious a fashion.
I mentioned earlier that Irish legislation can be quite strange from time to time because of the nod and the wink. Perhaps I am as guilty as anybody else, but I certainly would not compare a station such as this with one of the high powered pirates whose motives are entirely commercial and whose motives are based on profit. There must be a clear distinction between the two types. The North Cork Community Radio serves a border area of two or three counties and is doing a great service in that area. If the new Commission decides that stations can only serve on a county at large basis, stations such as that will not even bother to apply for a licence because they will be ruled out before they start. Their whole meaning is totally different at present and they would not be able to complete on that type of basis.
We will have to consider something more than a county radio system because we will definitely see quite a lot of what one could call clone radio being unable to compete. Radio Leitrim would be no different from Radio Sligo or Radio Roscommon. They might have different names and different presenters and one of our centres may wish even to participate in something such as that. They will all be aiming at the same sort of market; they will all inevitably have to produce much the same type of programme. I do not think this would be of much entertainment value for the public and it would not do much for the choice of radio programmes that would become available.
This whole question will obviously have to be dealt with by the Commission. The Minister said the legislation is quite flexible and these decisions will be taken by the Commission. I hope the Commission will look at this in a very broad-minded fashion and try to ensure that the type of stations set up on a national basis will ensure a great diversity of services and that we will not be stuck with clones of the same radio service throughout the country.
The decisions the Commission makes will be extremely important. I am glad the Minister has put such thought into the make-up of the Commission. He said the Commission he intends to set up will be quite similar to or even exactly the same as the one in the 1985 Act. I welcome that. I certainly hope that the cross-section involvement which appears to be part of the Commission will ensure that every licence application which comes before it will be scrutinised in a very fair fashion and that the only consideration at the end of the day will be the ability of the people willing to offer a service to offer it on a basis which will obviously work commercially and also work to the benefit of the community and help to entertain them and offer them a type of service which was not available to them up to now.
The second major topic which we have to discuss as a result of the change in the legislation is the new television channel being set up by the Minister's proposals. He rightly stated that there is such choice of television channels available at present that it is only fitting that we should give broadcasters within this country a chance to compete with foreign channels who in many parts of the country, particularly within the past five to six years, have enjoyed a majority of the viewers. People in our major cities and throughout the country, as a result of different sort of broadcasting and rebroadcasting systems, have available to them the different BBC channels, UTV, ITV and Channel 4. They now have the satellite channels so there is obviously no lack of choice of television available to the consumer.
The new national channel will have to approach their programming schedules in a very careful fashion because, if they decide to offer the public those programmes which are available to them at a cheap rate such as "Dynasty" and "Dallas", they will be doing nothing new for the broadcasting service and it would be better never to have set them up. We hope, as the Minister stated, that they will try to increase the amount of home produced programmes available to the Irish public. It would appear, as the Minister also stated, that this is the only option available to them if they are to continue not only as a viable alternative but as an alternative which produces a good return to the public.
There is one danger which one can foresee in the setting up of a third national channel, that is, the advertising revenue and market available. A third national channel will be seeking advertisements of a national nature. Those people who can afford to advertise on this third channel will be the same people who can afford at present to advertise on RTE 1 and RTE 2. People who can afford to advertise on a regional type channel, if that is available, and attempt to hit a smaller market, will still be unable to advertise on the third channel. Presumably the advertising costs will have to be as expensive as they are on RTE at present. They are prohibitive for any firm bar those trying to aim for a national market.
We should give some sort of consideration to allowing the third channel to branch into some sort of local television system. Throughout the country there is certainly a need for this. In Cork city — I obviously would be not able to avail of the cable service they have there — they have their own television channel for a couple of hours every week. I am not sure of the quality but I am sure that if it was funded in a better fashion or it was available on a weekly basis, or for so many hours per day every day of the week, it could operate better.
I hope the Minister will consider allowing some sort of regional television, perhaps not as a separate entity, through the third national channel. There is a market for it and there would certainly be a market on the advertising side. In the larger towns of Munster, big firms would not consider advertising on the national channels. They would not think it worth their while pay to advertise to 100 per cent of the country when only 10 per cent would be within reach of them, but they would consider advertising on a more regional basis if it were available. This is an option which could help to fund the third national channel and allow it to start producing national programmes which it could do if it had the necessary funding.
In the debate in the other House I read many comments on the type of programming they feared might come about as a result of the third television channel. I mentioned earlier how cheap it was to transmit "Dynasty" and "Dallas" and similar programmes. We do not need to be too worried about that because we have such a plethora of alternative channels and satellite channels that people seeking entertainment from that type of programme have more than enough choice at present. I certainly believe that our new channel will not see much of a market in that and will not seek that sort of programming system.
I notice in the other House also comments about the suggested alternative programming on this national channel. Some Deputies raised the televising of the proceedings of the Dáil and Seanad. Perhaps that is a dangerous topic. We do not know what the public reaction might be but it is something that can be considered and discussed as part of this legislation. There is a certain market for it. I know Irish people complain continually about politics and politicians but nobody is more interested in politics than the Irish. If there was a liberal amount of broadcasting of the political process on the Irish channel, it would be quite popular and it would let the public know exactly what goes on rather than hearing about it at second hand. It would make the Houses of the Oireachtas more relevant to the people.
There was also mention of the religious channels which exist at present — that obviously is in the radio field and is slightly removed from what I am commenting on now — which I believe have quite a large listenership. I presume the Commission will take that into account when considering a licence application from that grouping. I have no feelings one way or the other about it. If they are able to make a proper submission, showing that they have a ready made market out there and that they can do their business in a fair and impartial manner, I hope they will be considered. We are hoping that as a result of this legislation people will have a much more varied supply of both television and radio.
I noticed recently that we have a huge amount of sport available on the satellite channels. No nation is more interested in sport than we are. Sports coverage on RTE has been quite adequate up to now but I think it could be extended. This is something we can look at when we are considering the setting up of a third channel. There are many minority sports which get no coverage whatsoever on television at present. If some of these sports were covered in a better fashion it would help to increase public awareness of them and if that helps to promote them, all the better for the community. I would like to see something being done in that respect. We are always saying we would like to see programmes based on quality rather than on a search for mass audience. The same applies to the coverage of sport on television. We usually see only the sports which attract a large audience. I hope that on the extra channel we will see coverage of minority sports which do not have that sort of audience at present.
In his speech the Minister said that section 8 of the Bill will provide a short term licensing system for festivals in hospitals, schools and colleges throughout the country. That is a good idea. RTE have been involved in a small way in that option down through the years. On occasion RTE radio provided some sort of local broadcasting service during weeklong festivals. It was very popular. People who never had a chance to have an input into broadcasting were provided for. Section 8 of the Bill will be very helpful and I support it wholeheartedly.
The provision to ensure a 20 per cent news and current affairs quota is a very worthwhile idea. We most certainly do not want a 24 hour pop service station blaring out at everybody from all angles. This provision to ensure that, even on the most commercially orientated stations we have 20 per cent news and current affairs, is laudable.
I hear some of the illegal stations from time to time. I do not want to upset Senators any more but it would appear that the 1 o'clock news on RTE automatically becomes the 2 o'clock news, the 3 o'clock news and the 4 o'clock news on the pirate radio stations. What they call news is usually five, six or seven hours old, if not a day. That will presumably change as a result of the tightening up of the legislation and ensuring that people who are granted licences for services must provide a proper news and current affairs programming system. It is good that even the most local of stations will have this current affairs and news quota. I realise that the Minister allows himself power to waive this provision in certain circumstances but the more stations this applies to the better. Even in the smallest communities which will be served by the smallest and lowest powered radio station, there are plenty of news items and plenty items of current affairs value. It will be novel to hear some of the items of interest from those areas which up to now had no chance whatsoever of getting an airing on the air-waves.
The Minister commented on the financing of the Commission. It is obviously very important that it will be self-financing after the first year or two. The Minister was probably correct in reducing this turnover fee from 5 per cent to 3 per cent. In many cases we will be talking about a community based radio system where profit is not the motive and where the people running the stations will be put to the pin of their collar to arrive at a break even point. Keeping the turnover fee as small as possible will be quite helpful to them in that respect.
I would like to return to the question of the local community radio stationing system versus the more commercially orientated ones. I appeal to the Minister to ensure that those local community stations get a fair hearing when licences are being granted. The Minister made the point that people who have operated illegally up to now, and in particular the bigger commercial stations, are at no advantage whatsoever when they apply for a licence and that their expertise, which they definitely have, will be of no advantage to them. The second point of that argument is that they are at no disadvantage either from their years of illegal broadcasting.
I suppose this is difficult to reconcile because, on the one hand, I am appealling to the Minister to give serious and fair consideration to the smaller local stations — which, as Senator Murphy pointed out, were also illegal — and to come down harder on the bigger stations. I do not think we should have too much sympathy for the bigger stations because they made a large amount of money during the five or six years they have been in the business. The market open to them was quickly shut-off to every body else. Anybody who tunes into pirate stations in either Cork or Dublin and hears the amount of advertising on them would have to accept that they must be doing exceptionally well and that obviously their bank balances have fattened over the past five or six years when they had no competition. I would not feel sorry for them in any way if they were not successful in obtaining their licences. Rather than having a neutral approach, we should be slightly biased against them. They were not into community radio broadcasting; they were into big business. They worked on the "quick buck" motive and have creamed off whatever profits were available up to now. Because of that I do not think they should even be treated on the same basis as the smaller community stations. I will leave my comments on the radio Bill at that.
As the Minister said, the Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill, in a sense, while complex, is not a Bill for a Second Stage speech. Arising from the original Wireless Telegraphy Bill most of the illegal stations could have been closed down. Once the present Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill, 1987, was published it appeared that all parties were in favour of its passage through the Oireachtas. I presume it could have been passed if we had so wished many weeks or months ago. We could have gone ahead with the closure of many of these illegal stations. However, we have had quite a liberal view regarding illegal broadcasting and we decided that we would not close them all down until we had alternative legislation. I presume that is why there was no great rush to pass this Bill. However, it is a sizeable document and I am sure it will provide for much discussion on Committee Stage.
Overall, I welcome the Bill. It is time we faced up realistically to the problems we see all around us. I am sure that, as a result, the community at large will have, on a more organised basis, the type of radio service they voted for with their feet. It is good that the Oireachtas is at last catching up with the public perception of what the system of broadcasting should be. There is plenty of room for manoeuvre within it. I hope many local communities who have been totally outside the ambit of the broadcasting services can take part now as a result of this legislation and that all our lives, in some way, will be enriched by the legislation which we hope will be passed within the next few days.
I welcome this Bill which is long overdue. Since I became a Member of the Oireachtas I have been asking the different Leaders of the House when this Bill was coming before us. I am very delighted that it has come. Both Bills are very progressive and are, as the previous speaker said, very welcome and long overdue.
The Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill deals with the unlicensed stations. These are not pirate stations but unlicensed stations. There was a demand for a type of entertainment that was not provided for in legislation. I am delighted the Minister has got around to it after various other attempts by previous Ministers.
My only concern is in relation to the closing date for these unlicensed stations, 31 December. There is a gap which could be three months, six months or even a year before the licenced stations in these areas will be introduced. I have done much research in this field over the past five or six months. The greatest problem in this regard is the supply of the necessary equipment to provide for these stations in the various communities. If you do not want to buy the equipment from the existing stations but want to buy it new, it is difficult to get and there is a massive time lag. One person considering making an application was told there was a delay of up to 14 months when buying new equipment. I would like the Minister and his officials to look into this and the effects of a closing date on 31 December.
I am thinking of the people who are making their living directly in this way; the producers in the recording studios, the artists, publishers, record companies and everyone involved in the local Irish entertainment field. That has not been mentioned here, with the exception of the Minister's passing reference to "entertainment" in his massive contribution this afternoon. That sector of the industry are totally dependent on having 80 per cent of their shop window wares advertised on radio stations. I am talking now about the stations outside Dublin, the majority of stations. I am not talking about "Sunshine" or "Radio Nova" who would not give Irish home entertainers a radio play if they were paid treble the amount. I am talking about the stations up and down the country who have the Irish music industry at heart, keeping jobs going and keeping our people employed in our own country. They are the people who have the expertise and the alternative entertainment ear for what Radio Éireann were not supplying.
Having said that, I know that RTE television have the right attitude. It is a pleasure to congratulate RTE television on the magnificant contribution they make every year to the Irish entertainment industry. I say that from massive experience, having been involved in the industry for the past 18 years.
I welcome the fact that radio is being legislated for. Those who were unlicensed are looking forward to the time when they can participate legally and have the security of knowing that they will have an involvement for X number of years, that they will not be knocked off the air tomorrow morning or some other time. If the Minister were to say that the Bill will come into effect on 1 February or 1 March I would definitely agree to a period of 60 days, but if it is to be a year that would not be the case. I believe it will be a year because the equipment is not available unless you want to buy it at second hand. I researched this as late as yesterday. I am talking about the local stations — I am not talking about the national station — who will be supplying their own equipment. If the Minister can enlighten me on that I want to welcome the Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill and proceed to the other Bill.
I welcome the introduction of the Commission as the independent authority. In particular, I welcome the various different people from the media and commercial affairs, radio, communications, engineering, trade unions, administration, social, cultural, educational and community activities. I hope that the Bill also provides that people from the entertainment industry will be included, because no matter where one goes throughout the world the big word in television or radio is "entertainment". If radio stations do not supply entertainment, then you are not going to have a successful radio station or, for that matter, television station. We all know the problem that exists at present. It is because of lack of knowledge in high places of the requirements of entertainment that we have the present position in Radio Éireann, and specifically in Radio 2. I welcome the setting up of the Commission and ask the Minister to include people — one person or two, if possible — from the world of entertainment. As I have said, entertainment is vitally important for the success of the legislation before us today.
My next point relates to the licence period of the stations. I was of the opinion, having discussed it at length with various people interested in the legislation, that to be fair and to have a worthwhile investment — and considerable investment is needed — the minimum time that these licences would be granted for would be ten years. The initial two or three years will be the most difficult, because it is the market share, as the Minister has said, that will determine and define the success or failure of all of those stations.
We have had the experience of seeing what has happened in England and America. In America at present 50 per cent of local radio stations are in financial difficulties. It is easy for anyone to move to America now and buy equity in those stations for a small amount of money because radio now captures such a small market share of advertising and is not the big lucrative market that people might be led to believe it is. Radio was far more dominant 20 years ago than it is today, particularly with the advent of satellite television. Cable television is now beaming in up to ten channels to many homes in our town and cities. These are the problems that one faces as an advertiser in trying to get the best value for money. I would strongly advocate and welcome what the Minister has said in relation to the Commission taking the views of various sectors of the industry into account before they would finally advertise for people to come in and make their pitch for stations in particular areas. When the Commission have had a look at the various geographical locations and the spread of population of, say, counties Donegal, and Kerry and County Leitrim, for example, which has a very small population, the county boundaries will have to be broken. As we all know, in England there are roughly two million listeners to local radio and it cannot be made successful. What point is there if we cannot have at least 150,000 possible listeners in the local radio areas? I wish everybody luck who participates and looks for a licence, but anybody who has not got a minimum of a 150,000 listening population will have serious trouble surviving.
I think the only way of overcoming many of these problems would be to have an opt in and opt out arrangement in various counties. For example, Counties Leitrim and Longford, together with my own neighbouring county of Westmeath, would have a population of only 110,000 or 120,000 people. A station could not possibly survive there. The Commission should have a look at a scenario where they could opt in and opt out at certain times and take the musical content for five or six counties. That is the only way by which stations will survive.
I welcome the Minister's inclusion in the Bill that the Commission will take into account the views of all the various interested parties genuinely interested in seeking licences. Most people who approached me said that they would not be interested if it was on a county basis because they would not be able to survive. In fact, many were strongly considering emigrating to New York and Boston to run musical stations. They believe that if they could obtain legal licences in those cities they would have a better chance of survival and a better chance to promote their wares.
The market-place will inevitably have sold everything out but at a cost. What will be the lifespan of the Bill? Nobody wants to sit here today presiding over legislation that will not work in the long term and seeing three or four years on that, out of 20 licences granted, 14 will have got into financial difficulty. We would much prefer to have a scenario in which we could all say that we had contributed to the Bill — a Bill that had been going through the Legislature for about 20 years — that we were the people who put our heads and our expertise together, and finally made it work.
It is a fantastic opportunity and a tremendous challenge to everyone involved in the media, whether in sport or in music. It is an opportunity to do away with the myth going around for so long that outside of Donnybrook one cannot get ones wares aired or one cannot express views. We all know the popularity of Donnacha Ó Dualaing's "Highways and Byways" when he was on air and we know the popularity of Mr. NcNiffe's "Newsround" programme on television. We have a terrific opportunity here to open up the Twenty-six Counties. The Border counties will also be listening in. Their artists and people will be interviewed, I am sure, as the artists from the South are now being interviewed on Downtown Radio, Radio Ulster and all the other legal radio stations that exist in the North. This is a tremendous opportunity to do something positive and expand the whole spectrum of the media and not just have it located in Dublin but throughout all Ireland. I welcome the fact that the Commission will liaise and finally make a decision about to whom they will offer the franchises.
I want to pay tribute to most of the radio statons around the country that made a terrific contribution towards keeping jobs going in the Irish music industry. Without these people more of our entertainers would be emigrating. It is a sad reflection on the national channel, Radio 2, which we, the legislators, set up to cater for all needs in music, but the complete opposite actually happened. We have wall to wall pop on Radio 2 at present. If I were to say here today that Radio 2 broadcasts for six hours each day to less than 2 per cent of the total radio listening audience in this country I am sure that everybody in this House would be shocked and appalled. But that is the situation that exists. A person with £500,000 to spend on advertising, say, during the Christmas period who rings up the sales department of RTE, says he has that amount to spend on the promotion of ten albums on release and asks if they could tell him what programme will reflect a listenership of the over 30 year olds, they cannot give him a programme because they have not got such a programme.
I am not standing up here to criticise their total set-up. They believe they are catering for listeners between eight and nine years and 25 years of age. After that, they are totally disinterested with the exception — as a result of an enormous amount of pressure from people like myself in the entertainment industry — of two hours on a Saturday night, a very low listenership time, and two hours on a Sunday evening from 8 o'clock to 10 o'clock. That is the only time you will hear Irish music played continuously and home produced programmes on Radio 2.
Two years ago when the longest selling single here in 14 or 15 years went to No. 1 in the charts Radio 2 would not even play this disc. I refer to Jim McCann's Grace. Although it was the popular choice of the people, everything people wanted to hear, they said it did not fit into their remit or formula, which was supplying music to this age group of nine to 25. I say that in the context of Radio Tara coming on stream. We are told that station will supply music to the UK and to other markets and will supply the same type of music at home. In my opinion, that is the pop world more than well catered for. It is so well catered for that three of the international companies are asking the disc jockeys on their national channel to please not play the record so often. The kids are now taping it and sales are falling. So it will be seen that they are over-exposed or, what we call in industry OEed. We have here two contrasts with material reflecting the culture of our country going abroad such as that played by the Chieftains, Foster and Allen and all those magnificent groups, terrific ambassadors, making the British charts, finding it easier to get played on BBC, on Channel 7 in Australia, the various channels in Canada and America while wall to wall pop music only is provided by the national channel and by Radio Tara coming on stream. When the local radio licences come I hope those people will not be granted licences. You only have to look at what is selling, at what is recorded. That is what the people want. The reason local radio has been such a success around the country is that people wanted to listen. If the people had not wanted to listen local radio would not have lasted six months. Local radio would not have been able to keep the door open, to pay their ESB bills. They would have been unable to pay the two or three people employed permanently during the day or maintain the enthusiasm of their voluntary staff late at night.
I hope to be given an opportunity to make a personal submission to the Commission based on my experience of what type of music and entertainment will survive. I do not want anything more than that required by the public and which will survive; it is that only that will survive in the commercial world. We should remember that, when radio stations are licensed, they will become liable to pay PRS, MCPS and all the other royalty percentages to which they have not been liable to date. A few of them have been paying over the past few years but it is a limited number only. Therefore, they will have to assess the scene on a commercial basis only. Community interests and involvement will last for a certain amount of time only. Remember that four hours a day community involvement amounts to 28 hours per week. That is an enormous commitment every week, 52 weeks of the year.
I want to hear all the material recorded in Ireland that is so commercial. You need only visit any of the places where these big groups play at night to observe the hundreds of thousands of people who will go to listen. If you observe the material the Radio 2 people are promoting at night you will quickly realise that you would not survive three months if you were in the record business, trying to sell records in competition with some of the records and material being played at present. In fact, they will play tapes of totally unknown artists before they will play No. 2 or No. 3 on Ireland's Top 30 chart selling between 1,000 and 1,500 records a week.
I strongly advocate that this nonsense should be stopped. We should get on with the job of representing the people because that is why we are here. I do not want to overstate the case. I will take it up on Committee Stage. I look forward to being able to make a submission to the Commission when they begin their task and seek people's views, ascertaining the facts and the figures of what is happening on the street. That is what the provisions of this Bill are all about; meeting the demands at street level.
As a full member of the European Community I understand the problems of the Minister and his officials in relation to Irish content and so on vis-á-vis the provisions of the Bill. I respect the Minister's efforts in this regard. It is an unwritten rule in Radio Éireann with regard to the amount of music they play across the board whether it be pop, rock or whatever. I have said things against them today but they are living within the spirit of adhering to playing 25 per cent home-produced programmes. Nevertheless they are playing too much out and out pop music for which I and most other people in this country cannot find a market. You just cannot chart it. Having said that I must admit RTE live within the 25 per cent unwritten guidelines of giving the home music industry a fair crack of the whip in their recordings. I know that presents a specific problem since we joined the EC.
I welcome the provisions specifying a 20 per cent current affairs coverage. The local radio stations around the country present an ideal opportunity to record snippets of county council meetings. I wonder if that could be achieved. County councillors get a reasonable amount of coverage in local papers but hearing is believing. This would present an ideal opportunity to inform people of what county councillors are doing in a voluntary capacity; how difficult it is, when they hear county managers tell them that they cannot afford a project, that the money is not available; or when a county manager says: "You have done a good day's work there, councillors, I have good news for your area". They could play a magnificent part——
What about the national lottery?
Well, at least we are doing things. We are not talking about doom and gloom that Senator Loughrey's party pontificated about for so long, sitting and doing absolutely nothing. I welcome this Bill. The current affairs provision will ensure that news is transmitted to people locally. As another Senator said, I hope it will not be a case of the national media coming back an hour later with what they have taped.
There is just one other point I want to mention in regard to radio in this city. I presume the Minister has in mind recommending two stations for the city of Dublin. Dublin city presents an ideal opportunity with a potential listenership of over one million people. The market share of advertising is now zooming in on the east coast. It presents an ideal opportunity for the marketplace to find out the different listenership choices. It is my belief that of that million or more people living in Dublin there is at least 40 per cent who formerly lived in the country, who came to Dublin to earn a living.
That presents an ideal opportunity for having one station for pop and another for MOR — or middle of the road music — allowing the marketplace sort it out. To have one station south and another north does not constitute a wise criterion. Remember there are three national stations — four, if one includes Radio Tara — competing for the same advertising business. If there were a local pop station and MOR station in Dublin it would not take long to ascertain the reality of choice on the ground. I am extremely confident that an MOR station in Dublin would not alone transform the attitude of many Dublin people but would encourage country people to enjoy themselves in the manner of their younger days. The problem here in Dublin is to air one's wares. Only for Treble TR Radio those country people would not survive in Dublin. Therefore the provisions of this Bill present a great opportunity in relation to the Dublin set-up.
I welcome the Radio and Television Bill, one only has to look at what Ryanair have achieved vis-á-vis competition with Aer Lingus to see its merit. Competition generates enthusiasm and renders everyone answerable for their stewardship. I look forward to this challenge that most people in RTE welcome. Also, it will probably lead to a greater appreciation of the magnificent effort and contributions of RTE personnel to the national station at present. Its provisions will put station executives on their toes and cater for them better than they are at present. If competition is what is needed, this is the answer. I want to congratulate RTE for their consistently magnificent standards. All we have to do is look at their coverage of the Papal visit and the Eurovision Song Contest. Whenever they were asked to live up to the national spirit RTE TV never failed and could be depended on 100 per cent. I know they will respond to the challenge presented by the new television channel. This is a channel to which we in the industry look forward. There is so much that can be done because Ireland, as it stands, constitutes a village for export. If one is not exporting at present, no matter in what industry, one will not succeed.
Ireland today is similar to Australia seven years ago when they were starting off in the film industry. The Australians were not taken seriously at that time. Yet the year before last they produced "Crocodile Dundee", the biggest box office hit in the world for film and video sales. Ireland is in the same position with fantastic talent. We have more artists per head of population than any other country. The creative aspect of our entertainment world is incredible when one looks at the success worldwide, in the last two years, of Irish artistes: the performances of U2, Chris de Burgh, Johnny Logan — who won the Eurovision Song Contest for the second time — the Dubliners, Foster and Allen, the Chieftians, all international stars. Why should some of these people have to go to America, England or anywhere else to make videos or whatever else when it can all be done in Ireland? We have the start of a magnificent industry. All of our new television studios can be used fully. With the advent of this new television channel we will have an opportunity of exploiting all our expertise and programming seven days a week.
I welcome the fact that the Minister says that independent programming making will be included. That ensures that no one company will have carte blanche or total control. All the opportunities are available to us. For instance, on Sunday evenings the Australian football game will be covered for 13 weeks, then the American big ball game for another 13 weeks and the Super Bowl for another 13 weeks. I cannot see why the All-Ireland hurling series, one of the greatest sports in the world, could not be covered for a fourth round of 13 weeks. The national channel has not pursued it, though it has the rights. One of the greatest games played on grass worldwide is hurling. Perhaps the independent local television channel will present an opportunity for the GAA to get up. Let us remember that it is a worldwide tourist attraction.
Television now commands, in Europe, 72 per cent and in America 69 per cent, of the total advertising revenue of advertising agencies and products. Advertisers do not spend their money without engaging in massive market research. That is why the Minister said today he was going to subject radio stations and television channels to massive market research. I would strongly recommend that the Commission would stipulate that this would be undertaken twice yearly. Different things happen; trends change quickly. Something which could have constituted a massive attraction last year could, when programming schedules are being changed, be sent almost into oblivion. On a Saturday night, "The Late Late Show" presented the greatest opposition to other programmes. Now it is presented on Friday evening and the entertainment scene in Ireland has gone down on a Friday night as a result. If one is managing an artiste on a Friday night one has not got that many options. The big swing has been to Saturday and Sunday evenings. One has to watch the changing trends. That was brought about by a change in schedule of one programme, the most popular programme on this island. Therefore, a market research clause built into the television and radio channels twice a year would provide an enormous opportunity for watching trends, keep executives on their toes and answerable for their stewardship. Probably I have forgotten half of what I was going to say about this Bill but I will have an other opportunity, section by section, on Committee Stage.
I congratulate the Minister and his officials on having introduced the Bill whose provisions hopefully will be implemented by the end of this year.
I should like to say in the first place that I have enjoyed the debate so far. I have listened with great interest to Senator Cassidy. He is a man of great expertise on the subject. I did not quite understand all he said because he was using some abbreviations used in the trade. As a matter of information, what is MOR?
It is middle-of-the-road music for the Senator's age group and mine.
I do not think the Senator would have taken up the time of the House unduly by having said that without my having to elicit this esoteric piece of information. There was also something else about Senator Cassidy's speech which interested me and which he said more than once: that the people know what they want and should be given what they want. That is a highly doubtful proposition. First of all, who are those people? Obviously we are talking about different age groups, different classes, different tastes. Secondly — and this is very relevant to much of what we are discussing here, and much of what Senator Cassidy said about the tyranny of wall-to-wall pop — I believe the people are frequently conditioned to think that they like what they hear. I believe quite honestly — and I hope it will not be attributed totally to fuddy-duddiness; I have people in my own house who correct my tendencies towards fuddy-duddiness — a lot of the hysteria generated by pop and rock is induced by the Svengalis behind the scenes who make money out of this kind of thing.
We come to a very fundamental problem in terms of music alone, not to mention all other forms of entertainment. What do the people want and what obligations have the duly elected representatives in this regard? It does not seem to me to be a very easy question to answer. I am glad the Minister's speech ran to such length but I am sorry he had to read it at breakneck pace. I hope he has recovered his breath by now. I am glad of his speech, because, for one thing, it supplies a dimension missing in the explanatory memorandum. As long as I am coming into this House, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, I have been making the point that explanatory memoranda are anything but explanatory. What they do is they summarise for people of mean intelligence what is already in the Bill. They do not tell us why the Bill came into existence, what is the philosophy behind the Bill, what is the motivation behind the Bill. The Minister's speech clarified the absence of perspective in that regard. Nonetheless, it seemed to me that many points in his speech — and he will appreciate that we have had little opportunity to digest it — raise points that are a bit confused and disingenuous. For example, in the fourth paragraph we read:
For the better part of 60 years, broadcasting in this country has followed the general European mould of being organised and run in the form of a State monopoly.
Let us consider briefly the phrase "State monopoly". It suggests a State-controlled and State-directed broadcasting service, peopled by bureaucrats and by lay-abouts who have to be kept on their toes, as Senator Cassidy kept reminding us. "State monopoly" conjures up in my view a totally false picture of the reality of what the fact has been of Radio Éireann and its service to this country over the past 60 years. I will leave that point there for a moment. "State monopoly" is a very misleading phrase indeed. Radio Éireann never acted in the way that pre-Gorbachev broadcasters did in the Soviet Union. Of course, that is why the Government, or any Government, do not like them.
Then we read this in the Minister's introductory remarks:
The apparent elitism that surrounded broadcasting undoubtedly contributed to this questioning attitude. There is little doubt, in retrospect, that broadcasters took the view that they knew best what was good for the listening audience and you could like it or lump it.
That sounds fair enough on first reading but is it not even more true that the politicians believed that they knew better than the broadcasters what was good for the listening public and the broadcasters could like it or lump it? By the way is it elitist to say to the young people or to the population as a whole: "No, it is not good for your educational and cultural development that you should be submitted to 24-hours, 7 days a week, nonstop pop; we propose to acquaint you with other forms of musical experience". If a radio station is run on those lines, if that is elitism, I am all for elitism, given the end product we see at the moment. Further on the Minister said:
The realisation had struck home that there was no longer a justification for the State to retain a monopoly in broadcasting services, that the public themselves were just as capable of becoming involved and of providing services which they themselves wanted.
Here we are back to Senator Cassidy's mythical people who know what they want.
Let us note confusion here; whether it is deliberate I do not know. If it is a justification for all this new departure to say that people now know what they want, that individuals and organisations want to get involved, that is fine. But somehow there is also the sinister prospect that the people who want to get involved are not the ordinary, decent citizens wanting to express themselves culturally, wanting to fulfil their personalities at local level, but sharks out there who see the loot, who want to grab as much as they can and make a fast buck. The language here has to be watched very carefully and I am only sorry I did not have more time to reflect on and analyse the Minister's speech.
We note the same, perhaps intentional, confusion later in the Minister's remarks where he says the fundamental objective of this proposed legislation is to: "allow individuals and organisations the maximum opportunity to become involved in broadcasting and to meet and respond to public demands and requirements in the broadcasting sphere". That is very woolly and vague. If it means that citizens of Macroom, County Cork, want to reflect themselves to themselves, fine, but I am afraid it means more than that. We do not live in that kind of Utopian world.
Later the Minister had this to say:
The fundamental reason for having any form of licensing for broadcasting services stems from the frequency management obligations of the State at national and international level. If it was not for the physical constraint of limited radio frequency availability, there would be no reason for the State to be involved in licensing radio, any more than it has an involvement in the print media.
I certainly do not accept the philosophy behind those statements and I doubt very much if the Minister and his Government support that philosophy. What that philosophy of broadcasting is saying is that the only reason we have to get involved is that the airwaves out there will be too crowded and it is our duty to technically sort out that mess. Surely to God that is not what the Government understand by their obligation to broadcasting? If you say that all the Government should do is sort out the technical mess, then you are what I would call a cultural Darwinian; you believe that, as in other spheres of life, the fittest survive and the weakest go to the wall. I do not honestly believe that a Fianna Fáil Government would espouse that pernicious philosophy.
I come now to a point raised by Senators Bradford and Cassidy when the Minister said the following:
I think the message will have gone out loud and clear from the Legislature that those who have been involved in illegal broadcasting will have no bonus marks to gain under the criteria.
I sincerely hope so because, as I understand the progress of this Bill to date, the Minister refused to accept an amendment which would bar pirates and operators of illegal stations up to now from being serious applicants for licences under the new legislation. Moreover, having regard to experience, this would mean that people who have experience in their own way, in the illegal way, would indeed be given favourable consideration. I hope that sentence will have an unambiguous and single application.
I could spend all evening analysing the Minister's remarks but I want to get on to my own ideas, except to point out this comment of the Minister:
We are also proposing that the new service should carry a reasonable proportion of programming of Irish and EC origin. Our primary concern in this regard, quite frankly, is for programmes of Irish origin but our EC obligations preclude a purely national discrimination.
That is fair enough. What I want to know is what constitutes a "reasonable proportion". If there is to be genuine concern for projecting what the Minister calls elsewhere our unique identity, then it seems to me you have to be less vague about what "reasonable proportion" means, that indeed you have to spell out percentages of time to be allotted to Irish programming.
I like to be able to support legislation because, on the whole, I believe that legislation is introduced seriously, and responsibly and as often as not — if anyone ever cares to analyse my attitude towards Bills over the past ten or 11 years — I have supported Government legislation but I am unhappy about this Bill. I certainly do not echo Senator Cassidy's eulogies about it. If it were still going under its original name of Sound Broadcasting Bill I would describe it as being very, very far from sound.
Debate adjourned.
Sitting suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 7.30 p.m.
I was saying the Bill has undergone a transformation from its original form. Indeed, it is an example of an unsatisfactory legislative process that this Bill began back in December last. It was very difficult today, for example, to find out the sequence of its progress in Dáil Éireann. It was only with some difficulty I was able to trace what happened to it. I said at the beginning that I was not very happy with the Bill and there are certainly some sections in it which make me very unhappy. I accept, of course, the central point that it is time for a new order in broadcasting and what makes the new order necessary is the pace of technology and the new awareness that local communities have of themselves. So to the extent that this Bill will facilitate, encourage and lay the groundwork for a good public broadcasting service at local or community level, I would be totally in favour of it. Obviously that is not the case at the moment. We do not have that kind of satisfactory community service in broadcasting. I am afraid as I said already, that very frequently in the course of this Bill we have the confusion of the concept of the public good and the shadowy figures behind the scenes whose interest in broadcasting is simply making a fast buck as the pirate stations have been doing unhindered for the past ten years.
I would like to take issue again with the philosophy, if it is the Government's philosophy, that because the newspaper industry, the print industry, proceeds more or less unhindered to do its own thing, the same principle should be applied to the airwaves. Surely not. The airwaves are a unique public source and they cannot be alienated to private interests in the same way as the newspaper industry represents private interests because the airwaves impinge so much more on people's lives than newspapers do. The great American public gets most of its information from television and much less, I am sure, from radio. For that reason, because it is so much more relevant to people's lives in the modern age, governments cannot ignore it in the same way as they can give a laissez-faire imprimatur to the newspaper industry. Indeed to go to the extreme, at one stage the Minister said that, apart from the technical necessity to regulate the airwaves, there was no reason for the Government to interfere at all. I regard that as total freedom being the same as total pollution, because you can get pollution of the airwaves just as you can of the environment.
Tribute has been paid, splendidly indeed, by Senator Cassidy and by Senator Bradford to RTE. I do not see quite the same fulsome enthusiasm in the Minister's speech either here or in the other House and I suppose there are reasons for that. I submit that RTE have done this nation a great service over the years. They have done this Oireachtas a great service in recent times through their coverage of our proceedings, though in passing I note with some alarm that "The week in the Oireachtas" on Saturday mornings is becoming exclusively "The week in the Dáil". At any rate, we all have our own reasons for entering complaints but I think that the service of RTE and before that of Radio Éireann are magnificent. Irish radio, almost from the beginning of the State, has reflected this country to itself in a truly distinctive way. If I were asked as a modern Irish historian to point out the facets of the Irish experience since independence which have really been distinctive in a period when we were under continuing threat from all kinds of levelling pop cultures, I would say Radio Éireann is certainly one of the areas which has done us proud and everybody in this House, particularly people of my vintage, would know what I am talking about. Indeed, given the cutthroat world of television, the entirely different medium of television and the much more difficult task our television broadcasters have to reflect the Irish ethos, as distinct from radio where it is easier to do that, it can be said that our two television channels have also done a magnificent job. They have done even better than the gobadán in the Irish Sean-fhocal. Dar leis an sean-fhocal "ní féidir leis an gobadán an dá thrá a fhreastal" ach bíonn at RTÉ gach aon diabhal thrá a fhreastal.
RTE have to serve so many different demands that I think they are doing a yeoman service. Of course, it is nonsense to say that the new Bill will somehow put them on the alert because it will bring them into competition, that it will make them pull up their socks. The fact is that RTE have been in competition since the first fringe reception of British television. In latter years under cable and satellite broadcasting they have been in daily competition. They know that and respond to that with the British channels in well over half the country. I do not know what the percentage is now, but within a decade of our present time we can be sure that they will face even greater competition. Therefore, they are and have been in a competitive situation and have stood up very well to that.
What they have not done, however — and this may underlie much of the Government's unease with RTE — is fulfil Seán Lemass's scripture. Despite his blunt expression of the philosophy that broadcasting is an instrument of public policy, if that means an instrument of Government policy RTE have steadfastly refused to lend themselves to the purposes of any Government in this State. Once again that shows how superficial and shallow the phrase "State monopoly" is. If RTE were truly a State monopoly I do not think we would be having this Bill at all. Certainly we would not be having the television section of this Bill. Because they stood up to the Government and behaved in accordance with the best traditions of the public service and the semi-State service, they deserve well in the long term of the Government despite the friction that has come up from time to time.
I do not know that any real thought has gone into much of this Bill. Are we simply following the trend in the United Kingdom because they have multi-channel radio and television? Because the United States have them do we model ourselves, as we too often have exclusively, on these entirely unsuitable models? They are unsuitable in terms of size. They have societies and economies different from ours. I wonder to what extent the researchers who are concerned with drawing up this Bill looked to countries like, for example, Finland which would not be a bad model for us to follow given its smallness and its contiguity both political and cultural to a great power, to find out what goes on there in the world of public broadcasting.
My main worry about this Bill, however, is Part IV concerning television programme service. Where did this come from? It was not there in December 1987. It was brought in on Committee Stage. Where is the demand coming from for another television channel? I certainly recognise the demand for a multi-radio channel and for communities having their own radio, but who stands to benefit from the introduction of another television channel in this country? It seems to me that one of the things wrong with this Bill is this. Television is so different a medium from radio that I do not think this Bill, or any Bill, could cater adequately for the two quite different media. Part IV of the Bill worries me quite a good deal. Who stands to gain? What are the unseen pressures here working? The Minister says he has evidence of a demand for this service. Who are the people demanding? It certainly is not the ordinary citizens of the average Irish country town or village who are demanding another television channel. I suspect it may be the Irish counterparts of the Murdochs and the Maxwells. I would certainly hope in that connection — and it should be in the Bill — that no newspaper should extend its writ into a publicly sanctioned radio service. We have enough examples elsewhere of what can happen in that regard and we certainly do not want a Sun or a Star of the airwaves foisted on us.
What benefit would the new channel confer on the Irish people? Senator Cassidy has said on numerous occasions that only by giving the people what they want, only by fulfilling a true public need, will the television channel succeed. I wish I could believe that. I believe what will happen is that advertising revenue will follow the new channel and will compel it to sink to low standards. This is what happens elsewhere and, unless the most rigorous standards are built into the Bill to control that, it will happen here too.
The Minister in his speech made the point that with the proliferation of channels from Europe and elsewhere — of course, cable links are now old hat; the new airwaves are going to be governed by an unbelievable explosion of satellite channels — we will need another television channel in order to make our place, as it were, in all this proliferation of channels. I do not really believe that. Can one Irish channel, even if it works well, really matter in a whole welter of television channels? Would we not be better off improving RTE and encouraging it to be even more a quality television channel than it is so that it can hold its place? In my view, with such a small population in such a small country, with such vast pressures on us from outside, only one station can really serve the national purpose well in this regard.
Whatever pious gestures are made about home-produced programmes the Minister knows that in effect this is going to be very difficult, that any demand for a certain percentage of home-produced programmes has been dropped, and that is significant too. Any of us who has ever appeared on television know instinctively how costly that medium is. I have seen a figure that to make even the most elementary kind of home format programme it costs £24,000 an hour. Indeed, I can well believe it, having reflected numerous times, for example, on how inexpensive radio is compared to television. If you are on a television programme you may be waiting around for hours, time is money and so many people are on the programme. If it is an outside broadcast, it needs so many technicians, producers, floor managers and so on compared with radio.
Television is an enormously expensive medium and home-produced programmes are enormously expensive, and where is that money to come from? In my view there is only a certain amount of revenue out there. There is not an infinitely expanding area of revenue which somehow will be generated by so-called increased competition. That might be true in the United States and in the United Kingdom, but it certainly is not true in Ireland in an age of recession. The revenue is a constant, both at local and national level and more and more revenue will not be generated by more and more stations. There is no infinitely expanding pool of revenue. To attract revenue, standards inevitably will have to cater for popular and what I might call "admass" tastes, and the sequence is predictable.
I said there is not enough revenue; only this morning I met my friend the editor of Dublin Opinion, Bob Ryan, who was talking about the difficulty these days of surviving in the context of ever-decreasing advertising budgets from big institututions, banking institutions and so on. Advertising budgets are being cut back all the time. Does that not indicate that there will be no expanding revenue for a new station? I do not wish to be too Cassandra-like, prophesying a dismal future; nonetheless, I think the advertising revenue is likely to follow a new station and to desert RTE. Ambitious executives in RTE are already sniffing the opportunities of the commercial air. What will happen in the end is that RTE — I am talking here of course about television — will have to be propped up by public subsidies. So you are going to have two compliant television stations — one the new independent station watching its cues carefully in case it offends the Government; the other, which has given magnificent service, compelled by diminishing revenue to fall back on public subsidies. I ask myself if that is the aim of the Government.
It would be far better to concentrate on the television stations we have, RTE 1 and RTE 2, and to see where it is capable of expansion and development at both local and regional level. Develop your existing channels at local level and work them into real local community needs. In that connection, by the way, I may say, since I have been criticising the Bill, how much I welcome the recent extensions to broadcasting in various ways which the Minister has sanctioned — not least of course, on the main radio channel. But I wonder whether this is enough, whether, if we are to have competition both in radio and television, RTE should not be given much wider powers to meet that competitive situation instead of continually having to beg the Minister to extend their broadcasting hours. In this connection my own city has been hard done by. Cork local radio has given Cork a great service, but it has been prevented from extending and developing that service where it could crowd out the pirates, which is its entitlement. Let me say in passing that I refer with pride to my city because it is my city. Senator Brendan Ryan, with his creeping megalomania, is now referring to Cork as his city.
Senator Murphy, you cannot go on in that way when Senator Brendan Ryan is not present in the House.
I know nothing about Senator Ryan's view of my church because I have finished with my church, but he had better keep his hands off my city.
I am not concerned whether you are finished with your church or your city. I am concerned only with what remarks are passed in this House when I am in the Chair.
I am well aware of your concerns, a Chathaoirligh.
Senator Murphy, when Senator Ryan is not here to defend himself, whatever you think of me or my rulings, you will withdraw the remark about Senator Ryan.
I move on to the position of the Irish language. There are references in the Bill to the need to have regard to the Irish language, but I notice that these references have disappeared entirely in this very extensive statement we have had by the Minister. I think that I am right in pointing out that there is not a single reference in the Minister's speech before Seanad Éireann to the need to have special regard to the Irish language.
Senator Murphy, before you go on, could I ask you to withdraw the remark that in my judgment was derogatory to our colleague, Senator Brendan Ryan?
No. I do not think I will withdraw the remark. It will stand up to scrutiny. Anyway it was only a bit of fun, but if you lack a sense of humour I will withdraw it.
Thank you.
Reference was made earlier on and there is some reference in the Bill to the Irish language but I think I am correct in saying there is none in the Minister's speech. God rest poor Daniel Corkery who in his book The Fortunes of the Irish Language, Imeachtaí na Teanga Gaeilge, said solemnly and hopefully, writing in the thirties or forties: “The State is now behind the language and therefore everything has to change for it”. He meant, of course, for the better. We have seen to what low point Fianna Fáil's concern for the national language has dwindled. I accept there are people in the Government who are concerned but that concern is not reflected in this Bill. I will quote from page 7 of the Bill:
In the consideration of applications received by it and in determining the most suitable applicant to be awarded a sound broadcasting contract, the Commission shall have regard to...
(d) the quantity, quality, range and type of programmes in the Irish language and the extent of programmes relating to Irish culture proposed to be provided;
I submit that is not enough to guarantee that the most distinctive element in the whole fabric of this country will be sufficiently safeguarded and promoted under the new Bill. We need a specific guarantee of so many broadcasting hours and so many programmes. I am not saying this should be done in every instance. The Bill should not demand a uniformity in inflexibility throughout the whole range of stations which will be set up under it, but there must be something more specific in the Bill to guarantee the position of the Irish language than the very vague promises that do service for this important aim on page 7 and on page 15 where once again under the television programme service section, we are told that the Commission will ensure that the television programmes shall have "special regard for the elements which distinguish that culture and in particular for the Irish language". What does "special regard" mean? It is utterly meaningless unless we get real concrete guarantees that the Irish language will not be neglected in these new stations set up under the auspices of the Bill.
Here — and I am sure my colleagues will concur gladly — I have to pay tribute to Radio na Gaeltachta. Since their inception they have been a great success and whoever takes the credit is fully entitled to it. Listening to Raidio na Gaeltachta — which I like to think of as Raidio na Gaeilge as well because not only those who live in the Gaeltacht derive enormous pleasure and enjoyment from this service — I sometimes allow myself to think this is the kind of way we could have been if the Gaeltachtaí had not diminished, if the language revival policy had succeeded. This is the kind of natural, joyous, native, racy kind of broadcasting that would be on a much wider scale had this country not been by history so culturally impoverished and culturally beaten. One of the things that makes Raidio na Gaeltachta distinctive is their reliance on local news. It might seem at first hand rather morbid to say you derive great interest from hearing when there will be a removal to the Church on such and such an evening of some American emigrant who came back home to die, but this is the very essence of Irish life.
You put me in an apologetic vein, a Chathaoirligh. I am sorry to have snarled about the north Cork service but I want to tell Senator Bradford that, whatever the intentions of the illegal broadcasters, they broke the law continually. However, on the main point Senator Bradford is perfectly right. The new stations will survive or die according to the extent to which they fulfil the local needs and satisfy people's real craving for listening to and discussing their community on radio and television. I was saying to Senator Mooney during the tea break that at one level it is true that there is a great vogue for "Dallas" and "Dynasty", but it is a superficial level on the whole, a form of escapism. People look at "Glenroe" in a different way from the way they look at "Dallas". At the level of radio this need for local and regional fulfilment of themselves is very obvious and Raidio na Gaeltachta have done that splendidly. The Irish language and broadcasting in Irish demand more than we are getting in this Bill, and I say that in particular to a Fianna Fáil Government who still see the Irish language as one of their primary concerns.
Much has been said here and elsewhere about the pirates. We are discussing also the Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill, 1987 which I favour totally. Coming back to Senator Bradford, I understand that the motives of community radio people were different from those who were out to make the fast buck, but all of them have been allowed to operate illegally for far too long. That has brought the law into disrepute. I do not care what demand was out there for these pirate stations or how much people demonstrated in the streets in favour of such and such a station, all that was manipulated like much of the content of the pirate stations themselves.
The point is that the law is allowed to fall into disrepute in many areas. We pass a litter law and we do not enforce it. We pass a law concerning rod licences. No matter how mistaken it is, it is the law of the land and we either do not enforce it or we bring in irrelevant bishops. This country is plagued by the lack of seriousness with which we do not enforce our laws. The way the pirates were allowed to operate with impunity for so long was a national scandal. Thanks be to God and it is high time, that has been corrected. I hope there will be no bonus points for illegally gained experience in that regard.
I think it was Senator Bradford — to whom I am much indebted because I have referred to him so often — who made the point that he did not see why some proper consideration should not be given to the proposal to have religion stations; he did not see why they should be dismissed out of hand. Neither do I. If we are in a competition, God has to market Himself as well and He has to compete with the other versions of Him. Since we have created Him in our own image and likeness these images have to compete with each other and generally I see religion stations as quite innocuous provided they are not taken seriously.
I spoke earlier about the rather makeshift way in which the Bill underwent a sea-change in the middle and how that was unsatisfactory in some ways, but I welcome the decision to substitute the Commission for a merely consultative authority. It makes for good Government and good legislation for the Minister and the Government to make a substantial change in the Bill, not just because they said: "If this is a bee in your bonnet, we will indulge you", but because they came to see that the Bill needed a Commission. I welcome the Commission in the Bill. I hope they do their work properly. Above all, I hope they act independently. I see nothing in the Bill which lays down criteria for the appointment of members. I see nothing in the Bill which says a member of the Commission shall not have any vested interest in setting up a new station. I hope the Minister's appointments to the Commission will be made with proper concern for the possible private interests these people have.
Another fault in our political way of life is that too readily we brush aside the fact that there may be a conflict between people's private interests and their commitment to the public good. I hope the members of the Commission individually and collectively will be devoted to the public good in the important work they will have to do. I hope also that the process of scrutinising applications for licences and granting licences will be as public as possible. My colleague, Senator Ryan, to whom I referred affectionately some time ago, introduced a Bill in this House which I was glad to support, the Freedom of Information Bill, which unfortunately, was not successful. The principle is important that in this public area, where we are talking about community involvement and popular involvement, we have open and above board all the processes of application, to make sure that the people who apply do so in good faith. The Commission will have a difficult task.
Senator Bradford and Senator Cassidy were right to point out that the last thing we want in terms of radio stations is a duplication or a replication of the same kind of radio catering to the same kind of taste, even if it guaranteed a minimum amount of space to news and to the Irish language and so on. The Commission will have to find some way of varying the menu. I think that counties are far too small a unit, too artificial a unit in many ways, to be the basis for local radio. The new local or regional stations should cater for a range of tastes. Why, for example, should we not have, as we drive along in our cars, a station that has news all the time, as you can have in, say, metropolitan Boston or New York? We could have a regional station which would be particularly interested in news and news features. Could we not have stations which would cater seriously for musical tastes?
Earlier on, Senator Cassidy referred with pride to the international achievement of our musical artistes. I support the Senator fully in that but I was interested in the kind of people to whom he referred — the Chieftains, Foster and Allen and so on. The Senator did not refer to the achievements of people like John O'Conor and Bernadette Greevy and a splendid singer from my own city, Mary Hegarty. Senator Cassidy may have unconsciously reflected the predominant musical conditioning of a younger Irish generation. The last thing I want to do is to draw attention to my age or how far back my listening experience goes or, indeed, to involve anyone here present in the same timescale of recollection but there was a time when there was a much more varied menu of music available on Irish radio. Obviously the pop stations and the pirate stations are not concerned in the slightest with quality. All they want is to make money. One would have hoped that Radio 2 would have done something to bring back the old catholic taste in music but in fact Radio 2 went the same way as all the pop stations, with the result that Radio 1 has to cater now impossibly for classical music, for Irish traditional music, for classical jazz and for country and western, of which I am an increasing devotee, Senator Mooney will be delighted to hear. It is an impossible burden for them to cater to that wide range of taste.
It may be said that the young people are entitled to what they like, that we should let the people have what they want. I regard this as a pernicious doctrine. The people are not allowed what they want in a whole section of life. I say that if you pander exclusively to pop tastes in music in station after station, with wall-to-wall pop and rock, then you are doing our young people a serious injustice. You are developing their artistic sense and, therefore, their way of fulfilling themselves in life only at one small level. I have argued with young people about this and they have said: "This is what we like". I say: "This is what you have been conditioned to like. Of course you are entitled to have your pop and your rock and this is an expression of your personality but you also need to have your Gilbert and Sullivan and your Mozart and your Sean Nós and your instrumental music. All this is your heritage. It is either your Irish heritage or it is your universal human heritage and to deprive you of the opportunity to develop a taste for all these great realms of music is to do you a severe injustice. It is a form of cultural retardation which will stunt your cultural growth later on in life when you will need that kind of higher level of fulfilment."
Radio Éireann has tried to do that impossible task over the decades. I hope there will be some way of ensuring that one of these numerous stations which are being projected here will concentrate on serious music, especially as we live in an age when the technical resources of reproducing this music are unprecedented and would never have been dreamt of by a Mozart or a Beethoven. Could we not also, by the same token, have a third programme? I hate to have to refer to an English model but I mean the kind of thing that Radio Three does. I do not see why a plurality of stations cannot cater for a plurality of tastes and different levels of taste and different interests.
Finally, I must say that though I welcome the fact that the Bill tries to usher us into a new age which is made possible by new technology and by the healthy growth of community awareness, I do detect sinister dangers lurking in its depths and, above all, I oppose and will certainly vote against Part IV of the Bill because I do not believe there is any need for a so-called Irish television channel, which in the event would hardly be Irish at all. I believe our future in that area lies in improving and expanding the quality of RTE and providing especially for local and regional expressions on the national television services which again, as Senator Mooney pointed out to me, have the technology but it lies largely unused. The only way to hope to retain a reasonable share of the Irish viewing audience is to retain and expand and continue to support a television service which has served so well.
May I welcome this Bill? I congratulate the Minister. It is the first time since this debate started, going back to the mid-seventies when the first of the illegal operators first showed themselves, primarily in the Dublin area, that serious and far-reaching legislation dealing with this matter has reached us. Hopefully, it will become law very quickly. The Minister is to be complimented not only on the drafting of his legislation but on the implementation of it, legislatively speaking, and on the manner in which he has gone about his business. He has taken on board all of the various interests. There seems to me to be more interests in the broadcasting field than there are even in the liquor field — the recent Bill we had dealing with changes in the liquor law. The Minister has, in his own quietly efficient way, listened to all of the various issues and debates, particularly in relation to community radio, to bring us to the point where, as all sides of the House have indicated, we must now welcome at last a regularisation of the airwaves in this country. We will be seeing the demise of a situation which has made us a laughing stock in certain parts of the world. There was such a proliferation of stations here that one wondered when we were ever going to see the light of day. The light of day is now upon us and I can only wish the Bill well in principle.
I speak as much as a freelance journalist and a freelance broadcaster as a politician in making those remarks. One of the interesting and more important side aspects of this Bill's implementation will be the provision of and potential for new jobs. It is indicated in surveys that over the next ten years, certainly to the end of this century, the greatest growth of job creation will be in the communications business. Here is an opportunity for many of our young people. Admittedly, they have gained their expertise in an illegal way that I do not at all agree with; but, given no other opportunities and with these stations in their midst, they took the opportunities presented to them. We now have an opportunity for many young people who have an interest in the communications business to monitor the developments over the next six to nine months, to watch for the tendering for licences, for the granting of those licences and for the setting up of the stations.
The communications business is an exciting business. The Irish are perhaps the greatest communicators in the world. The most recent example of the manner in which we can communicate in an exciting and interesting way was during our recent foray into Europe for the European football championships. People of all ages and from all walks of life communicated. I am sure most of them did not know the German language but left an indelible impression. We Irish are unique in that way. The development of our radio and television services should result in an explosion of communication in a uniquely Irish way.
I do not intend to be repetitive. Much of the ground has already been covered by my colleague, Senator Cassidy, and to an equal extent by Senators Bradford and Murphy. I agree that the original concept of having a county type station might not be a practical measure, but to date the Minister has been very flexible in the framing of this Bill. Therefore, when the franchises are being decided on, depending on the allocation of the frequencies and those frequencies that are available to us as a nation, that where there is a surplus in one area or where there is a lack of take-up in another, perhaps more than one station could operate in a geographical entity. For example, Donegal and Kerry spring to mind as being very large counties. Cork is another example where the theory of one station might not be practicable. I know the Minister is very aware of these possible shortcomings and that he will be looking at the geographical spread of the stations when the franchises are being granted.
I must agree with Senator Murphy's and Senator Cassidy's comments in relation to the mix of formats. I said earlier that we are a great country for communicating. It would be a shame, given the challenges that are being presented in this Bill, if we were to end up with stations around the country which were in a sense clones of each other. It is a very real danger. The easiest type of programming and the cheapest type of programming is to put a presenter behind a mixing desk with two turntables each side of a telephone and a bundle of records. That is the cheapest form of programming. It may not be the best form of programming, irrespective of the type of music that is being played. I would, therefore, be hopeful that when the Commission are deciding on the granting of licences they would adhere strictly to the spirit and letter of the Bill as laid down by the Minister in relation to how those licences will be granted. I will not go into the details on them but they are pretty comprehensive.
I, and many of my colleagues, will be watching the results of the tenders, the advertising and the applicants who will apply for these new licences. A mix of formats is very important. Basically, it means that you will have the widest possible mix in a particular area. I understand that the areas will be designated in advance rather than waiting until later to let the market shake itself out, which is a sensible move because otherwise one could have a free for all and a geographical imbalance. Once the areas and regions are designated then at least prospective applicants know the areas into which they are going to transmit. It is in that context that I would hope there would be room for more than one type of station. I am not so sure that Senator Murphy's suggestion that there should be an all chat station, like an all news station or an all classical station, would be very practical in a country with a population of 3.5 million where, for example, classical music is very much a minority interest.
That is conditioning again.
I agree with the Senator. The Senator could not have put the case for diversification any better when he said that most young people say that what they want is pop music. It is simply because that is what they are being exposed to during that particular period in their lives. It is not so long ago since I was a teenager. In the early stages, particularly in the sixties when the whole pop revolution was getting under way, it was the first time that the teenage market was exposed to the manipulative powers of international record companies, aided and abetted by television stations and by all of the merchandising that accompanies the development of artists and the development of music. There is no question but that if you are being exposed to the same sound and to the same type of music over a period of time you become conditioned to the point where you say that is what you want to hear and nothing else. I fully agree with the Senator.
Therefore, it is important in the context of this Bill that there be the widest possible diversification of programmes. I know the Minister shares this view. He, like myself, can only be in the realms of speculation now. We do not know what type of franchise will be applied for. We do not know what the contractors have in mind, and we will not know that until they apply and put forward their programme schedules in the context of what is written in the Bill. Then we can see what type of stations we will ultimately have. It is a concern of mine, not because I would have an interest in any one type of music. Perhaps because of my broadcasting experience I would be perceived to have an interest in one type of music. Incidentally, I must inform Senator Murphy that it is country and Irish music; the "western" aspect was very much a Hollywood creation of the forties which, for his education, is no longer used in contemporary language.
Education is a never ending process.
I agree. I say that all the time. I talk about the music business as the widest possible spectrum of music. I am very much a supporter of locally recorded and locally originated material. By that I mean many of the artistes that Senator Murphy has talked about at one end of the musical spectrum, and the Furey Brothers and Foster and Allen, referred to by Senator Cassidy, and also Brendan Shine who record Irish compositions. He records almost exclusively songs that are written by Irish people, about Irish events, about Irish places. This is as much part of our culture as any other form of music.
I would be concerned that licences would be granted to some stations or to principals behind some of the existing pirate stations who, in my opinion and by the evidence of their own programming, have no loyalty to this country whatsoever. They are but an addendum to the internationalisation of music and are only interested in the quick "buck" and in making as many "bucks" as they can. These people operate primarily in the Dublin area and on the east coast because that is where two-thirds of the population of Ireland live. It is also where the largest advertising market is; it is where the biggest spend is. Consequently it is where, like moths to a flame, many of the potential radio owners will look for franchising. It would be remiss of me if I did not put on the record that I would oppose a number of existing principals of pirate radio stations who are currently indulging in very efficient public relations exercises such as saying: "We are closing down at two minutes to midnight on 31 December and we are not re-opening until the Minister grants us a licence". That is not really pulling the wool over the eyes of intelligent people. Such stations do not fit into the Irish character.
In relation to the news and current affairs programmes, the Minister has been very sensible. He has, in a sense, put a brake on the excesses of the more commercially-minded entrepreneurs. They will have to provide news and current affairs programmes. The only question that arises here is how much more costly that might be in relation to staffing. Sourcing of news, particularly hot news, current news, is an expensive business. It requires a level of expertise in staffing which, perhaps, might be beyond the resources of some of the local stations that are being proposed in this Bill. Perhaps the Minister on Committee Stage might elucidate a little more on whether he believes there is flexibility in his provisions for a new national television station and a new national radio station so that there might also be the possibility of franchising a separate news and sports service along the lines of Independent Radio News in Great Britain.
The attraction of this is that, firstly, it would be providing a valuable editorial alternative to RTE news. I do not wish in any way to diminish what the RTE news service has provided for this country since its inception. It is excellent, it has a reputation second to none, and the fact that we are close to one of the best broadcasting networks in the world, the BBC, and, indeed, the ITN network, has in a sense motivated our Irish broadcasters in the news and current affairs area to become, like them, among the best in the world. But I am sure you would agree with me, a Chathaoirligh, that if we had a situation in this country where there was only one national newspaper, where there was only one editorial line and that the news that you and I would read over our morning breakfast would be news disseminated by the one editorial line, we would not accept that situation for very long. Consequently, if we had an independent radio news and sports service, we would have for the first time since broadcasting commenced in 1926 an alternative news to RTE and that could only be for the betterment of the total sum of information in this country. The second reason why I would venture to suggest an independent news and sports service is that it could be used by local radios in an opt-in/opt-out arrangement, where they could for a pre-determined levy buy the national news from the independent network and in turn could opt out once the national news was over and then supplement their news with the local news segment following on immediately afterwards.
I will touch briefly on the question of people who are currently involved in illegal radio. I know that within the terms of the Bill and as a member of the European Community we are precluded from introducing the sort of legislative measures which have been introduced in some non-European countries in relation to the ownership of radio and TV. I do not believe it is in the best interests of this country that the ownership of radio and television should be in foreign hands and by "foreign" I mean non-national. I am not in any way being chauvinistic or introverted. I am merely reflecting a view that is held in countries as large as America and Australia. Indeed, a Chathaoirligh, I am sure you have read in recent days of the controversy that has surrounded the possible purchase of radio stations in Australia by an Irish national because the laws there preclude the monopolising of news media. I know we are precluded because of Treaty of Rome obligations but I would hope, again going back to the terms of reference included in the Bill, that the Commission under the direction, the advice or the suggestion of the Minister — and I know there is a separation of powers once he appoints the Commission — would consider giving preference to nationals rather than non-nationals, having a majority stake in the local radio network or the proposed national radio or proposed television station. I draw the attention of the Minister to this aspect of ownership simply because of recent activities by a non-national, Mr. Rupert Murdoch of News International, who is a franchise holder of a number of satellite television stations. In his activities recently in this country he has encouraged the setting up of an office to exploit the Irish market for advertising purposes on his cable network.
The Minister in his Second Stage speech said:
We are facing into a whole new environment in the television broadcasting scene where a lot more external channels are going to become available to the public. This is the context in which the Government concluded that we should seek to increase the options available at national level and to redress to some extent at least the imbalance between the number of external services likely to be available here and the number of national services.
That is a far-sighted view and one on which the Minister and the Government are to be complimented.
Here I must diverge from what Senator Murphy said earlier. I would welcome the setting up of another national television channel, even with all the attendant financial problems it may or may not have. This is an area of speculation. It will provide our people with a real choice, with an alternative. From next year there will be at least ten satellite television stations being beamed into this country on top of the six which we are already getting, between the Irish service and the British service. That is 16 television channels of which only two are Irish. It is vitally important that we should move now to protect our identity and that we should have a further television option. In that context, I welcome the setting up of a new TV station.
Community broadcasting entered the Bill subsequent to its initial publication and primarily because of the Minister's very quick response to representations made to him by the National Association of Community Broadcasters. Again, this is an indication of the Minister's flexibility and his responsiveness to what he has perceived to be the needs of the future of broadcasting in this country and the provision in relation to the community. The acknowledgement of the importance of community broadcasting by the Minister is to be welcomed. The National Association of Community Broadcasters or the people they represent will find it very difficult in the new regime to provide the type of programmes people will be happy to listen to. I do not mean the concept of community programming. I am concerned about the question of standards.
There was a debate in Great Britain some years ago on proposals by the British Government for community broadcasting. It is interesting that while the Government at the time — this would have been about 1985 — were seriously considering giving the go ahead to community radio, the Association of Independent Radio Contractors who represented the legitimate independent sector in Britain pointed out to the British Home Affairs Minister that community radio might be too poor to pay contributors enough to run a quality service. The British Government then quietly dropped this proposal.
I know that the Minister's view of the Bill from day one is that he is providing the framework and that the activities within that framework will be left to the individuals to decide how best to operate as long as they adhere to the law. However, I only make the point that, while community broadcasters have been clamouring and lobbying very effectively for their point of view to be heard, I hope the Commission will monitor the performance of community radio on the question of standards and the provision of a properly structured local radio. Just because a local radio is operating within a limited area, it does not mean there should be any drop off in standards. I hope the Commission will look at this whole question of standards, and that production values will be maintained at a high level. One has only got to tune into the 60 odd pirate radio stations operating around the country to realise the wide disparity in standards between them.
There are some — many of them in the Dublin area I criticised earlier for other reasons — who have a very high degree of technological excellence on a par with our national service. There are many others and one wonders where they are transmitting from. It seems they must be very close to the kitchen sink with all the attendant noise that goes on in the kitchen. They sound like the kitchen sink.
The provision in relation to special licenses is also welcome. Here I would like to compliment RTE who initiated the concept of community broadcasting in the early seventies. I doubt that there is a town of any importance in Ireland that has not at some time or another experienced the excitement of a community broadcast for the week of their festival or for the one or two weeks of their festival. Drumshanbo experienced that on two occasions. It was the very first exposure I had in programming over a continuous period when they came to Drumshanbo. I am grateful to RTE directly and to the concept of community broadcasting for providing me with that opportunity. I know it also provided many other people around the country, many of whom are now in illegal broadcasting and who hopefully will get into legal broadcasting after this Bill becomes law, with their start in community broadcasting. I am particularly pleased that the Minister has allowed the flexibility in the Bill that, for any festival or event in the country, if they wish to apply for a special licence that all things will be considered sympathetically and, hopefully, they will be granted the licence. It adds a flavour to a festival. It gives a cohesiveness and an identity in an area for a short period of time that not even the existing local radio can provide. The Minister is to be complimented on that.
I touched briefly on the job potential and I cannot emphasise it enough. Perhaps the Minister at some stage before we finish this debate might highlight an area may be people have not thought about. There is job creation potential here. I know the Minister is aware of this but perhaps many of our young people might not have thought about it and it may help some of them coming out of school to decide if they are going on to further education whether they should go into communication studies as there will now be more jobs here than there were heretofore.
There is to be a levy imposed. I was curious about the financing. As the Bill points out, in the initial two years there will be a sum of money from the Exchequer, start up costs for the Commission and, subsequent to that, there will be a levy of somewhere between 3 per cent and 5 per cent on the advertising turnover of local and national stations. This will provide the necessary funding for local radio and national radio. When one adds that figure to the percentage that will be required for the Performing Rights Society, who are the main royalty collection agency in this country, to protect the copyright of writers and publishers, and also add the normal weekly wages of staff, plus the cost of technical maintenance of national and local radio, I find it difficult to understand those commentators who have suggested that owning and operating a local radio in Ireland is a licence to print money.
Any entrepreneur with a sum of money to invest will want to look very carefully at the potential return from his investment in local radio. I say that in response to people who, perhaps for their own reasons, have been attempting to suggest that the Government are creating a legislative framework for entrepreneurs to make money at the State's expense. This will be a very competitive business. It will need the greatest cost efficiency and only the more successful will survive. That is not a bad thing.
Initially there will be a great rush for licences with so many illegal operators, all of whom feel they have a right to continue to broadcast under a different guise. The market will shake out the successes from the failures. The attraction of this concept is that it will happen at no cost to the Exchequer and it should not be at any cost to the Exchequer. If people wish to get involved in local radio on a commercial basis — here I distinguish from the community concept included in the Bill — they must also accept the obligations that come with that. I wish them well. I welcome the alternative broadcasting framework proposed in the Bill.
I have never supported the idea of pirate radio in this country. I believe it has demeaned us to a degree. Among the younger generation who, in the main, have been listening to pirate radio over the past few years, due to lack of political will on the part of previous Administrations, it has demeaned the law that these stations were allowed to continue on the air and become institutionalised to the point where people began to wonder why there was a suggestion that they were illegal. We must remember that when somebody turns on a radio that person does not know whether that station is breaking the law. It is there and if it is there long enough it becomes institutionalised. It becomes accepted and if there is an attempt made to take it away people wonder why. That is what I mean about demeaning the law.
I have to praise the Minister for bringing this Bill to the House so quickly. I hope the lag time, as one might call it, which Senator Cassidy referred to, will not be too great. I fully accept that the Minister has to have a cut off date and that that cut off date, according to his recent pronouncements, will be 31 December 1988. Given the relatively quick passage of this Bill through the House — I do not wish to anticipate what comes after my contribution — once it is law and the Commission appointed, there are no technical objections to local stations being on the air by the beginning of next year.
I can only welcome them and wish them well because, despite my remarks earlier — and I stick with them — that I was opposed totally to the idea of illegal operators, they have proven that in the area of popular music there is a need for an alternative to RTE, whether they like it or not. In fairness to RTE, they have accepted the challenge at this early stage. The indications in recent months suggest that our national stations, both 1 and 2, are rising to meet the new challenge. It is the least that any of us would expect from a station of professional excellence.
I welcome the extension of time given to RTE and also the opportunity for RTE now to sell more advertising time. Amazingly, until the Minister gave the directive, one could not buy advertising time on the premier channel, Radio 1, after 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. I am glad that that anachronism has disappeared. Within that time frame there is now a new programme for emigrants. I know that this has resulted from proposals and suggestions to the Minister's office and the Federation of Irish Societies in Britain that there be such a programme.
I hope that RTE in providing a pop music channel — Radio Tara — which it is proposed will be transmitted into Britain, will not forget the Irish community there. The Irish community in Britain have been badly served over many years and I know that there are well meaning people in RTE who have gone out of their way to ensure that the reception there could be improved. Various problems in recent years have arisen. The interference of two pirate radio stations, broadcasting off-shore, Radio Laser and Radio Caroline, were an inhibiting factor, particularly in London and the home counties.
I am a little disappointed that the considerable energies within RTE were not devoted more towards expanding programmes for Irish emigrants to Britain than the provision of a pop music station which will have no Irish identity whatsoever and which will not only be heard over three-quarters of Great Britain but will be, in a sense, a third national radio station, a third national pop music station for RTE and will also be heard all over this country. I am not privy to the decisions that RTE have taken in relation to setting up this joint venture with Radio Luxembourg and, therefore, I can only express my opinion as an Irish layman and as someone interested in broadcasting.
While I do not in any way wish to take away from what I hope will be a commercial success for RTE — they are talking about a £3 million profit in the early stages of start-up — I hope that with their considerable resources, technical and otherwise, that once they have Radio Tara running they will devote more time to providing programmes of interest to the Irish community in Britain, because, with the greatest respect to the purveyors of Radio Tara, a 12-hour a day pop music channel will not meet the radio programming requirements of the vast majority of emigrants.
I was an emigrant in my teens. When I lived in England, while I enjoyed pop music if it was Irish, I wanted to hear Irish music, Irish themes and Irish programmes. Even in this era of U2 and Hothouse Flowers I have no doubt that the young people over there now are no different from me when they go out for an evening. They, too, want to enjoy Irish culture and Irish music. That is why I hope RTE will give very serious consideration, once they have the Radio Tara concept running — this is very cost effective and will not be a drain on resources — to providing more programmes for Irish emigrants to Britain.
I did not intend going on so long because, as I said at the outset, the Minister had covered in his Bill most of the requirements of people who have an interest in broadcasting. I welcome the Bill and anticipate its quick passing. I hope we can come back to this House at some stage in the future to report progress in a significant development in broadcasting in this country.
I intended making a wide-ranging speech based on the fact that I was one of the co-signatories to the original Bill initiated in this House and which is now gone because of the inevitable delays that took place at the time. Although we have been criticised by many people for the delays that took place in that legislation there was a desire, particularly on the part of the Labour Party, that amendments were necessary to that Bill which we hoped could be achieved by discussion and negotiation. That was not to be. I listened to Senator Cassidy who has an obvious expertise in representing Irish performers, who knows how well they are doing and the lack of opportunity they have on RTE. I also listened to Senator Murphy's critical analysis, with much of which I agree, and to the expert contribution from a broadcaster, Senator Mooney. I now realise how complex this area is. As the Minister said, he has tried to strike a happy medium between all the interests in Ireland.
I commend our national broadcasting service for the most excellent service they have given on the two radio stations they have been given responsibility for and on the two television channels, RTE 1 and RTE 2. They have responded admirably to the responsibility conferred on them by the Oireachtas within the constraints laid down for them. They have performed impeccably. They have been independent of all our views because they considered that was their brief.
Senator Murphy rightly differentiated between being responsible to the Government and responsible to the people. RTE have managed to achieve that balance between the natural interest of Government, how news is projected and the overall good of the community, in line with their constitutional requirements and the legislative requirements laid down for them. The staff in RTE have also, in a way that is not known in other countries, honoured that commitment to their responsibility. It is appropriate that this House should put on record our appreciation of what RTE have done. We have a new dimension to the demands being made on us. Were it not for the fact that the Minister has agreed to the appointment of a Commission to run this new service, listened to recommendations from the National Association of Community Broadcasting and included them in the Bill, I would have had to oppose the Bill as it was originally initiated in December of last year.
I will deal with the first option. The appointment of a Commission is of cardinal importance if we are to be seen to be neutral in the area of broadcasting in the private sector as we have been in the public sector. Any radio or television channel in the future that is not under the control of RTE, as we understand it, must be responsible to some overall body. In this instance, the Minister has put in the concept of a Commission. Perhaps he might let us know how he intends to appoint this Commission so that we can make a critical analysis to ensure that the Commission are above any political interference. I am not suggesting that it would be political interference by the Minister but in the future by any Government, whatever their composition——
We will be there for 25 years.
Is that what the Minister predicts?
(Interruptions.)
I wonder what medium of communication we will have in that period as opposed to radio and television?
(Interruptions.)
I do not think he will live up to that kind of commitment. The Minister said there would have to be disclosure by members of the Commission of any interest they would have in proposed contracts. I know that Senator Murphy was concerned about the impartiality of this Commission. Perhaps the Minister will make ministerial regulations which he will lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas. I hope that the people who will be involved in this Commission will have expertise, an interest and a qualification in the area of communications.
I hope that our existing national broadcasting organisation, RTE, will have, as of right, some part on the membership of the Commission in future. Their expertise would be an advantage to the Commission. The Minister looks shocked, but I want to put it on the record. I reiterate that, if we are looking for expertise in this area, where can we turn to other than the "other vested interests" we are talking about? The only other vested interests I can think of would be those that have a financial vested interest in being involved in radio or television. If we are looking for expertise I can find no other source to which we can turn, without fear of contradiction about its impartiality and expertise, than RTE. I hope RTE will have some input into this Commission, particularly since the Minister has outlined that these commercial or private interests will have access to equipment for which the State and RTE have already laid out capital and provided throughout the country. Admittedly, the Minister said that the independent users of this equipment would be expected to pay for it. Apparently, either the Minister or the Commission will decide what that payment is. In view of the fact that we are availing of an existing part of the national network to facilitate private interests, I think there is nothing wrong with ensuring that they would have an input at Commission level.
The second area touched on by Senator Murphy is the new third television station. I am surprised that there was any suggestion by anyone that there is a need for a third Irish station. If there is a need for this, then obviously somebody has done their market research in the area of private individuals controlling a television network, because the mind boggles at the cost of providing a service like this. Unless people turn to it out of absolute curiosity and that results in attracting tremendous advertising, that is the only way the setting up of a third television station can be justified. But I wonder where this suggestion came from? I sincerely hope that a monopoly of the communications media in this country, and indeed outside influences, will not deter us from having a say in who should be involved in this independent private commercial television network.
The Minister mentioned the changes in technology which have taken place. Of course, there are changes in technology; but there has been a tremendous change in attitudes in this country by members of the Government to exposure to other mediums of communication. I remember with delight the views expressed by Dr. Conor Cruise-O'Brien, the then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, who had a vision that the Irish people might benefit from having another view in another television channel and talked about the option of allowing RTE to run in conjunction with the BBC.
Re-broadcasting.
The view expressed by Fianna Fáil at the time was that we would be corrupted and that dreadful things would happen to us if all of a sudden we were subjected to this kind of external media influence.
I do not remember that.
The Senator was too young then. The Senator was a teenage emigrant at the time.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator should not invite interruptions.
I am not. I am putting the facts on the record, because we are talking about the changes that have taken place. I am talking about the political changes that have taken place. Now, apparently, we are capable of listening to all sorts of supra-national satellite broadcasts, but at that time we had the gravest reservations about allowing the BBC to be transmitted. Of course, the objections came from people who already had the BBC, and still have it, and six other stations. The Senator talked about having six stations. I come from a county, a lovely county, with a small community radio which has been termed to be illegal. I have two stations and any broadcasting that is done by other television networks is illegal. People pay £100 for an aerial to try to get one glimpse of a race on BBC. We are an amazing people in that whatever is not available to us we seem to want it. That is a pity because there are only a limited number of hours in any day. As far as I am concerned, half a channel would do me because I do not have time to watch it, much as I would love the leisure time to watch all the programmes — satellite stations such as Sky and so on available on the east coast.
The Senator will have no chance with 16 channels.
Here we are suddenly very concerned that it is important to open up all our views to these external influences. This is a long way down the road from the time we had a poll which showed that we wanted RTE 2. I think they have filled the bill well. There are excellent programmes on RTE 2. There are some canned and some re-transmitted programmes, but what about it? With the amount of money available to them they have done an excellent job.
I do not see a commercial future for a third television channel. If there is a future for this, then there must be a lot of money available from advertising. I am concerned that the advertisers, those who pay for advertising on television, would then decide what kind of programmes they wanted transmitted to get at the audience they sought for their products. That is the only problem I have. I am delighted that the Commission will write into licences some criteria in respect of programme content — the amount of news, public affairs and other programmes which we think are appropriate. The airwaves are a national responsibility. We must not say that the Government's only function is the regulation of frequencies and so on. Television and radio are tremendous media. We cannot allow them to be available to everybody and anybody with the knowledge and expertise to be able to send out messages of all descriptions in whatever manner they consider fit and allow that to go unabated and unlicensed. It is appropriate that there should be some control over what is broadcast. My concern is the national good. Who is to decide what is in the national interest nowadays? We must set down some standards in regard to what is appropriate.
The Minister has written into the Bill an opportunity to have community broadcasting. I am not sure of the technical procedure to be followed when allocating the licences because people talked about county boundaries, population spread and other criteria before an area will be licensed. Tipperary Community Radio were suggested as a model, so to speak, of community broadcasting. I could speak for two hours setting out the actual programme format followed by Tipperary Community Radio, but I will not. This organisation made a submission directly to the then Minister, Deputy Wilson, after they had been in operation for a year. They told him they had established a community radio structure under the auspices of Muintir na Tíre which was developing a community interest, and any money forthcoming was used to fund community projects like meals-on-wheels, holidays for old people, children's holidays and activities——
Did they take advertising?
Yes, for this purpose. It was subject to to a management structure in which people had an input into programming and the content of programming. If broadcasting Mass was illegal, well then Mass was illegal as it was back in the penal days. TCR broadcast Mass every Sunday for people who are sick and in hospital — not in their own area because Fianna Fáil closed the hospitals but people are still in hospitals within the——
It is still against the law.
I know, but they were always used by Fianna Fáil candidates at election times.
That is not true.
As a matter of principle at election time I was never allowed to go on them, never mind wanting to go on them. On 3 March 1983 the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union wrote to the Minister commending community radio and in particular Tipperary Community Radio and said that
the local branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union were fully aware of the excellent service being provided to the local community by this community radio for the past two years. It was obvious to them from the beginning that this local community radio was local and community and in consequence they had no hesitation in endorsing the efforts made by so many people in the community to maintain this service for the people.
The trade union were suggesting to a Fianna Fáil Minister that communities had a special place in communicating local news and current affairs.
The Senator's branch in RTE were against it.
The NUJ, the predominant union in RTE, have members working in pirate radio stations all over the country. One would wonder where is the ideology in community broadcasting? I am worried about community broadcasting because the Minister knows from listening to submissions from people involved in this business that, if there is money to be made, the private sector will be interested in getting involved in broadcasting. The only reason they will become involved is that there is a fast buck, or a quick buck, or a lot of bucks to be made. None of them will have a commitment to the Irish language, to the Gaeltacht, to Irish music, to any of the things that worry us as legislators. Our emigrants should hear Irish music and news from home, but they will not be transmitted by the private sector who are interested only in making profits. They will broadcast what the people who pay for their broadcasting by way of advertising want. They will not give the audience what we feel they should hear, or what Senator Cassidy wants them to hear. He wants them to hear some of the Irish performers. Unfortunately, they will not be broadcast because there is no money in that for this type of operator.
We must tread carefully here because we should not remove at the stroke of a pen one of RTE's main sources of funding, that is, funding from advertising. Advertising has been one of their main sources of revenue and if it is ever removed from them we will be forced to give them further State subvention to stay in the business of independent broadcasting, or we will put their future in jeopardy. Giving licences to private operators may not be in the interests of the community but only in the interest of the operator's profits. That is why I have the gravest reservations about the viability of a third national television station. The Minister has intimated that he feels it is important to have a major Irish content in the programming. If they do that, there is a place for them.
However, the commercial advertisers may demand something else from them. They may demand 24 hours a day screening "Dynasty" and "Dallas" and all the other soap operas. It would be a tragedy if that happened. We are subjected to enough American oriented glamorisation of ways of life that have nothing to do with the Irish way of life. RTE have done a tremendous amount of work in projecting Irish country life in some of their serials and home produced programmes. We must look at the overall costs and at the implications this Bill will have for the people involved in RTE who work independently and live within the criteria set down by the Houses of the Oireachtas.
The Minister has grasped the nettle. Whether we will all be stung at the end of the day I do not know but at least he has grasped it and any criticism I might make is constructive. I have had some input in the past into trying to achieve a consensus on broadcasting, in particular in the area of community broadcasting which was part of our joint programme. Unfortunately the pirates, as we know them nowadays, became accepted almost as community broadcasters even though they had 24 hours a day wall to wall pop and other types of music with advertisements in between. That is not community broadcasting; that is not broadcasting at all. Anybody can do that. As Senator Mooney said, you can do it from the kitchen sink.
Community broadcasting, as we know it, has to have a whole range of programmes covering everything that happens in the community: funeral notices, social events in the area, what is happening at county council meetings and other items of local interest. Were it not for the provincial newspapers, ordinary people would have relatively little access to information on what happens at local level. Even the national media now do not necessarily address local problems unless they are headline makers and have some extraordinary connotations. The national newsprint media have a responsibility to the ordinary people in rural Ireland who need to know and read about what is happening in their own area.
I have reservations, to say the least, about some sections of this Bill. I certainly have reservations about this independent commercial television station because I see no justification for it. I have not seen or heard demands from anybody but perhaps there are some entrepreneurs out there with access to money or who have some indication that a lot of money is available in this area. If that is the case we should know about it. We should know the implications of the legislation we are enacting for our national broadcasting service. Certainly we should not give anybody a licence to print money. There are a great many pirate stations at present. The pirates are not in it for the love of their community or because of their commitment to the music they play. They are in it because there is money in it. If there is money in it at pirate level, when it is legalised there will be legal money in it. I hope that will not detract from our national network which has done tremendous work in the past.
The legislation before us appears to be dealing with three basic things: first, how to eliminate the illegal stations as they now operate; second, setting up legislation to enable local radio stations to exist within the law; and third, the setting up of the third television channel. Those are the three basic elements included in the legislation before us. We in the Fine Gael Party welcome the legislation although the Minister suggested that it may be anything up to ten years too late. I would be inclined to agree with that. While I did not hear the Minister's speech today, I read it. I did not hear Senator Bradford's contribution. I heard Senator Cassidy's contribution but, unfortunately, I missed Senator Mooney's contribution, in which I would have been particularly interested, but there were rumblings from another station and for a short time I had to leave the House.
The Senator is forgiven.
I would have been interested to listen to what Senator Mooney had to say. One of the points Senator Cassidy made today was whether we can afford the number of stations this legislation envisages. From programmes broadcast on radio, television and on British television, it would appear that, given the size of the stations we are proposing to legislate for, given the small number of people within the catchment area of those stations and the experience across the water, they cannot survive under the new criteria. Previously criteria did not exist in the sense that when you set up, you were breaking the law; you broadcast and you made your own rules as you went along. Basically you took in as much revenue as possible and kept your costs as low as possible. Under the legislation criteria will be laid down basically by the Commission. I envisage that many of the present stations will have difficulty in simply surviving. I wonder, therefore, in that regard are we legislating too late because radio is going out in any case, and are we legislating for too many at one time? What will happen to the local radio stations which were operating "semi-illegally"? Semi-illegally if that is possible, or is it a contradiction in terms?
It is not a term.
Like my colleague, Senator McGowan, I have just introduced a new word both into the English language and into the House.
Is there a difference between semi-illegal and semi-legal?
A little like the bottle being half full or half empty. The stations were operating semi-illegally because the law was not being enforced. When these illegal stations go on operating, contrary to the law technically, but with the broad acceptance of the general populace for whom we legislate, they semi-legalise themselves. In my own area we have two community radio stations, Donegal community radio and North West community radio. One is based in Inishowen and the other in Letterkenny. They are in a sense broadcasting illegally, but both have provided the type of service that has been referred to in that they have entertained and provided the social service of giving information to the community about itself. They basically play music but have some element of news content.
The question I want to put to the Minister is: have these stations debarred themselves from consideration or have they given themselves an advantage because of their very existence? I suppose that is a question anybody with an interest, vested or otherwise in radio stations is asking. The one certainty in Donegal is that only one, if any, can benefit. It is possible that neither may benefit. What about those people — and there is such a group in existence in Donegal — who conformed and who prepared themselves years ago in anticipation of legislation? They set themselves up in a company and went through all the proper channels. They brought people together with a wide range of backgrounds. They have the money and expertise available and they hope to provide a service. Will they start off in a disadvantaged position? I would like to think they will not. At the same time, I would not like to see the other two radio stations going out of existence. The Minister and the Commission will have a problem. Multiply it by 26 and you will have 26, at least, problems where such groups exist.
I will now deal with another aspect of this legislation, the television channel. I know absolutely nothing about the Minister's intent in introducing this. I can only find a reference to it in the Minister's speech. We are facing into a whole new environment in the television broadcasting scene when many more external channels become available to the public. This is the context in which the Government concluded that we should seek to increase the options available at national level and to redress, to some extent at least, the imbalance between the number of external services likely to be available here and the number of national services. In addition, there have been clear indications, just as there were in the sound broadcasting sector over ten years, that there are people who are capable of becoming involved in the television broadcasting scene. Like my colleague Senator Murphy and other speakers I did not hear any demand from the public for it. Can we afford another station? Are we in a position to finance another station? Is it possible that the Minister envisages that this third television station will be received via satellite in European countries and that we can advertise our wares for export to these countries? If so there is some justification for it. If it is the case — and some Senators have already expressed concern about this — that somebody will be handed a franchise to print money, that is a dangerous thing. That paragraph does not seem to cover all of the intent, and I do not know what the intent is. I have grave concerns about it.
Looking at the Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Bill before us today, as opposed to what was before us last November, there are substantial changes and I will refer to one or two of them. In November the Minister proposed to retain certain powers to himself or any successor, to invite applications, to define the number of licences per franchise area, to issue the guidelines and the criteria to be considered in deciding between different applicants for specific licence, granting the licence, specifying the licence terms including duration, seeking information about any station service and accounts, investigating non-compliance with licence terms and suspending licences or changing the terms of new licences. This has been changed. At that time the Minister proposed an advisory committee which has now been changed to the Commission. We are told that the Commission will be totally independent and it is right that it should be. Could the Senator help me again?
On a point of order, having spent two years in college with Senator Loughrey I know when he is winging it, and he is winging it very substantially at the moment.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Senator Loughrey should be allowed to make his contribution.
Having spent two years at school with Senator O'Toole I do not even understand the terminology.
(Interruptions.)
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Senator Loughrey to continue without interruption.
Senator Loughrey to continue his impromptu remarks without interruption.
In particular it should be noted that the Commission must be comprised of people who have expertise or have shown capacity in media and commercial affairs, radio communications engineering, trade union affairs, administration, social, cultural educational or community activities.
Is this a pregnant pause?
The setting up of the commission is probably the most important aspect of what appears before us today because the Minister has moved from a stance of having an advisory committee and keeping its powers vested in the Minister and his Department to one of an independent Commission. That Commission will be independent of the Minister's influence although referring back to the Department. I would be a little afraid of the setting up of the Commission. How does this Commission come into being? Frankly, will it be a prerequisite to be a card carrying member, or will it be truly independent? That is the concern that is in almost everyone's mind.
The Communist Party?
I think the Senator knows to which party I am referring.
It is the same formula as in the 1985 Bill.
When my colleague interrupted me I had noted that, as the Minister rightly says the formula is the same as in 1985. I hope the Minister will establish an independent Commission but if the Minister intended to use the same formula as was in the previous Bill in 1985, why did he leave it so late in the day to do it?
I recognise that the Minister has been sitting here all day and I am beginning to feel somewhat sympathetic towards him so my remarks will be brief. It is my habit to be brief in this House. Looking at what is in the Bill, it is also important to note what is lacking in the Bill. I want to deal with that first, perhaps because I have a sort of perverted nature.
It did not take me two years to find that out.
We will have a wide-ranging VHF network around the country under the proposals of this Bill. We have a medium wave network. Senator Mooney referred extensively to the proposals to utilise our long-wave facility with the proposed setting up of Radio Tara. I will deal with the various aspects as I go along. I understand the Minister may not be replying to this debate tonight. Perhaps on Committee Stage he will refer to a short-wave service because I have never understood why we have never exercised our facility in the short-wave frequency. For a nation with only a tiny proportion of those who claim to be Irish living on this island, it seems to me that there is a stronger case for short-wave radio in this country than in any other. I ask the Minister at some stage during the debate on this Bill to tell me why we have not developed a short-wave radio system.
We are a country in the eye of the international news quite regularly and for the most compelling diplomatic reasons whether they are something like the Northern issue, Anglo-Irish affairs, the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four. For the best and most compelling diplomatic reasons, we badly need short-wave radio broadcasting from this country, a radio service that can broadcast world wide into the homes of Irish emigrants whether they be in San Francisco, Sydney, or wherever they happen to be. We have been quite remiss in not developing this over the past 60 years. One reason is the diplomatic one.
Another one is the area of industrial development. There are many Irish people in positions of great influence in many parts of the world, in areas of political influence or industrial influence, or involved in various influential orgainsations in countries around the world. These people in many ways have lost contact with this country. I can assure the House that a short-wave radio system beaming into their homes, talking to them in their own home environment, would make the work of groups such as the IDA and development corporations much easier. I ask the Minister to take that on board.
No one can question the commitment of Senator Mooney in the area of emigration. We have talked. I attended seminars and I listened to people talking about the need to help our emigrants when they arrive in other countries in terms of advice, direction, hope, or whatever. We can do that through a short-wave radio service. It is fine for Senator Mooney to talk about interference by Radio Laser and Radio Caroline in London with the broadcasting of RTE, though it has quite improved in recent times. We must think further afield than that. The emigrants in London are the closest to us and they are very closely in contact through sales of newspapers, etc. Those further afield in other continents are certainly out of contact. We could help the emigrant in San Francisco whose passport is out of date and who does not know that he or she can safely approach the Irish Embassy for the kind of information which groups like the Irish Immigration Reform Movement and various other support groups around the world provide. This could be given out from there through short-wave radio service and could be effective in terms of giving direction, in terms of giving the type of advice these people need to exist and to improve their lives and, indeed, to give them some hope, some help and support. That is a fourth reason I would push the case for a short-wave radio which might have been included in the provisions of this Bill.
The final argument I would develop as a reason for the setting up of a short-wave radio system would be the development of our tourist industry. We had the development in recent months of the famous "Write and Invite" campaign. I am not going to make any derogatory remarks in that respect; we have heard all the jokes about it. I am sure it was a serious and conscientious effort on the part of Bord Fáilte to do something which, in theory should have worked. I am sure it will have had some effect. Contrast that campaign with being able to talk to these people in their homes, being able to say to them: "come to Dingle on your holidays; come to Ireland on an archaeological or historical study tour; come to Ireland on a walking tour"——
It has been drawn to my attention that Martin J. O'Toole is indicated on the monitor instead of Senator Joe O'Toole.
My close relation of the same blood; blood is thicker than water.
And nastier too.
Yes, indeed. To sum up, I have asked the Minister to take on board my suggestion. It is a very serious suggestion and one I would certainly be prepared to develop as I have done some work in that area. In the interests of the worldwide community, of diplomatic relations, of industrial development, the support of emigrants and our tourist industry, I would ask the Minister to respond to my suggestion on a short-wave radio service.
The other great deficiency of this Bill is its lack of provision for educational broadcasting. We are now in the unhappy position of being the only country in Europe which does not provide an educational broadcasting service. I could spend two hours going through all the reasons and historical developments for our being unable to do so. However, that lack is insupportable at this stage. It is insupportable that our young people do not have the benefits of educational broadcasting. As I recall it, the RTE charter was to educate, inform and entertain. RTE have entertained, informed and educated in a broad, general way but they have not broadcast a schools' broadcasting service in the way that the IBA, the BBC and other European countries do so.
I shall not dwell on educational cutbacks, except to say that we are putting chalk and talk against the best of technology, graphics and media services. Schools are in competition with the children's channel. That should not be the case. There are two reasons we need educational broadcasting. One is because the media, television and radio are powerful educative forces which can be used very effectively in schools and knit into the educational service. The second reason is that, by the use of educational broadcasting, one can train and educate people to assess, understand and positively respond to the media.
Professor Murphy said earlier that if people hear one type of music only they never get to learn about anything else. The same applies to literature, or anything else. One must expose people to the best of everything. Then they make their choices and learn. We need media education very badly in this country. I have looked very carefully at section 6 of the Radio and Television Bill, the section dealing with the conditions for the granting of franchise or licence. I am just asking the Minister — and it could be done very simply in the Bill — to add to the requirement of a national independent television service or to add to their charter the requirement that they would provide schools broadcasting. This would not cost the State anything.
The provisions of this Bill present an historic opportunity to exploit this deficiency for the good of a generation of youngsters, enormously enhancing our educational service. I would ask the Minister to think seriously on that issue and to respond to it. It can be done just by the inclusion of a word. I would venture to propose that it be done by way of regulation. There is a certain flexibility in that section which suggests to me it could be taken on board.
One may well ask: what does this mean? I know the arguments advanced against it — that if one initiates schools broadcasting then one must spend a huge amount of money on production and so on. I can assure the Minister that with the archival material available in RTE's libraries alone — with people just doing a "voice-over" onto already produced material — would be a beginning in schools broadcasting. Take the example of the excellent material produced by my colleague, Senator Éamon de Buitléar. That is aimed at an adult or children's audience, a general audience. It is aimed specifically at school children or those in the course of learning — such as a nature study class in a school. It can be done without any adjustment to the material produced, with merely a "voice-over" an addition of graphics, that type of thing. There is a wealth of historical material that could be used.
Can you imagine what a group of history teachers could do with the material produced for the television series History of Ireland by Robert Kee? There is a huge potential there awaiting exploration. This is something that could be done cheaply and effectively. The person who introduces educational broadcasting in this country will not be forgotten because it is badly needed.
The provisions of section 6, on what would be required of applicants for licences or franchises, is somewhat vague. I am sure they are not meant to be vague. The Minister expanded somewhat on them in the course of his introductory remarks. Provisions such as checking the character of an applicant bother me somewhat. I am not sure what it means. Are we here talking about morality, philosophy or what are we talking about? What aspects of the character of the applicant are we talking about? There is also the requirement with regard to the sound economic principles contained in subsection 2 (b). I am not sure that is really appropriate or capable of application because people are going to take a commercial risk. Certainly I agree that licences should not be granted to people who will go out of business in five or six months.
Senator Murphy in his contribution referred to the area of religious broadcasting, I presume that religious broadcasting is subsidised or paid for by various religious groups. I think that is the way it operates in the US anyway. I do not see how one could present that as an economically viable proposition but it is something that could be broadcast successfully over a long period of time. I will not go through all the other requirements of that section, except to say that I do find them somewhat vague. I would like to hear what does the provision in subsection (2) (e) with regard to "minority interests" mean?
I welcome the idea that Irish talent be developed in the area of music and drama entertainment. Senators Mooney and Cassidy referred at some length to that and I do not intend developing it. The way in which the provision is worded is somewhat pious; it is an aspiration, a hope. If that is what we want to do on a particular station, then there should be some stipulation entered in the provisions, such as a percentage of programme time being assigned to home produced material, or whatever is intended — the development of Irish talent or whatever. Let me say immediately that I do not agree with this whole protectionist policy about our culture. I do not worry about 16 satellite channels beaming in here. I contend our culture is sufficiently strong enough to cope with that, provided we give people a solid education, the type of inherent power to assess, discriminate and decide what it is they want to listen to. There is talent in Ireland in need of development and an outlet. We have a requirement to provide that outlet so that that talent will grow and develop. The provision is vague in both ways; there is nothing there that would prevent the Commission from making it a requirement. I would ask that it might be done.
Subsections of section 6 deal with the undue number of sound broadcasting services interests of one person or the undue level of interest in the communications media. I support that totally. I have no interest in seeing a Smurfit or an O'Reilly becoming a new Murdock or Maxwell in this country. I want that controlled also. I contend that to be an absolute prequisite to the granting of a licence.
I want to talk about where RTE and all the pirate stations stand in all of this. There is a lot of pious talk about this question of matters being legal or illegal. I come from the west coast where people very often make their own decisions about what is legal and what is otherwise. People who stand up and say that something is legal because a Bill was passed today — it was illegal yesterday, it is legal today — do not impress me with this sort of moral approach. I know that at one time trade unions were illegal. I know that heroin was sold by reputable drug companies through advertising. I have in my office an advertisement for heroin. It was sold by a company with the highest international reputation. At one time the sale of heroin was legal.
The question of legality or illegality often boils down to a point in time. What is important is that the law has been flouted; that is what was inexcusable. In other words, this change is overdue. I welcome the Minister's statement that we, as legislators, must also take some responsibility for the tardiness of the introduction of this Bill; that all of the blame does not rest on those who may have exploited a loophole in existing legislation. In a sense it would be cutting our noses to spite our faces if we were to say that, because people had built up expertise working illegally, we would not allow them now to participate in its legal development. Neither would I make the case for them. I accept the Minister's approach; it is an even-handed approach.
In addition, I contend there is much to be learned from the so-called pirate radio stations around the country, some of them have provided a service, others have not. In my own home one of my children listens to Sunshine Radio in the morning and the other to Q102. The difference between one or the other is not the point. The fact is that they have created a certain identity to which people respond. I have also noted the extraordinary development of pirate radio in the Dublin area over the years. For example, Sunshine Radio, based in Portmarnock, started off by trying to provide a certain community service. But the exigencies of profit-making obviously pushed them out. They have moved from endeavouring to provide a community service to being a 24-hour pop music station.
International pop.
Whichever way it is, I find that regrettable. I use that example to illustrate the problem presented by the provisions in this Bill. The problem is that we will find ourselves seeking the lowest common denominator. I do not write off all popular music — as opposed to pop music — but hour upon hour of pop music is really unacceptable. We are the only capital city in the world, of which I am aware, where one can tune into a rock music station. I regret that.
The Senator is right.
Even at that level, in terms of progress. we must write in certain requirements that would be complied with. We must look at specialist stations.
I want to correct one point to which Senator Murphy referred. He asked why cannot RTE produce something like Radio 3? In fact, they do and have been doing so very successfully for the last two months. They set up the FM3 network, presenting purely classical music which, of its genre, is a very successful development in RTE. I do not know of any nation in Europe that has such an interest in the media, in news, in current affairs. We need to exploit that interest. There is a need in this country for a 24-hour news station and, indeed, for a 24-hour classical music station. There is a need also for a 24-hour pop station and for a 24-hour rock music station. We need to look at specialist audiences in that way. I am not presenting those as representing the complete spectrum. I have just picked one small area of music and news. We have seen this develop in London with Capital and Piccadilly — the idea of trying to develop news and music stations. There is a way in which these can and should be developed.
I listened to the Minister's introductory remarks. However, I was far more interested in his press statement of 20 November last, when he first presented the Bill. That statement frightened me at the time.
And the Senator is not easily frightened.
No, I am not. I saw the national independent radio service, I saw the two for Dublin city and the one in Cork city. Then I looked at the counties which, with a few exceptions, were doing fairly well. Sligo did not get its own station, it was Sligo-Leitrim; Laois did not get its own, it was Laois-Offaly, and Carlow did not get its own, it was Carlow-Kilkenny. I asked myself what have those counties got in common? I suddenly realised I was looking at constituency broadcasting. That does bother me considerably. It does not take a great deal of intelligence to realise that radio signals radiate from a point. There is no way that Sligo-Leitrim would be a more convenient area to broadcast to. In fact, if we had to put two counties together I would suggest that Longford and Leitrim would be far easier to broadcast to in terms of placing a transmitter. So I am gravely suspect of the Minister's summary of his franchising proposals. I have not come across them or seen them referred to since. Perhaps they are dead and buried, or do they constitute simply a Freudian slip on the part of the Minister at that time?
Regarding those franchising proposals, I contend the Minister must be seen to be cleaner than clean in ensuring that they are handed out in a way that does not facilitate any kind of politicking. The concept of county broadcasting stations is a practical and useful concept. I also like the idea of town broadcasting. The Minister said at that time that he was examining the second phase of franchising, which would comprise the establishment of neighbourhood stations with a radius of eight to ten miles. Even at this stage the Minister could supply franchises for the 100 or more towns in Ireland with a population of over 1,500 people. That is progressive and gives a town an identity and it would be of benefit to the tourist industry also. Tourists will tune into local radio stations. The Minister's concept of franchising could be open to abuse in regard to the constituency viewpoint.
Changed.
I am glad to hear the Minister take my advice so readily. I welcome the fact that the Minister has retained in the Bill the facility to provide local short term broadcasting, to cover local festivals, or a week or two-week broadcasting facility in an area.
I would also worry about the restrictions placed on RTE in respect of certain parts of their service. Can the Minister explain why RTE have been constrained in applying for a franchise? We are talking about deregulation, open competition, fair play, about letting the public service compete, about allowing public service broadcasting to pay its way, all now in the national psyche. Why are we stopping them? For example, why cannot they go out and tender to provide a news service to all these county stations? Why cannot they offer whatever facilities they have and sell them? We talked earlier about the ESB selling their expertise and operating on a consultancy basis. We have expertise in RTE. Section 4 (1) states:
It shall be the function of the Commission to arrange, in accordance with the provisions of this Act, for the provision of sound broadcasting services... and one television service additional to any broadcasting services provided by Radio Telefís Éireann...
If it is additional to their services can they become involved?
All I can say to the Senator is that they can sell services to the new stations coming in. They can sell new services to them or sell any other services to them. If they want to get other licences they apply under their establishing legislation rather than under the provisions of this Bill.
What does that mean?
I cannot allow a discussion between the Senator and Minister.
I am grateful for the explanation but it does not solve the problem for me. Do I understand that under the provisions of this Bill we are setting up, say, one radio station in Cork county? RTE cannot, under this legislation, apply to run that station. The Minister says they might apply under their own legislation to do so. They have been notoriously unsuccessful in getting ministerial or Government support for even extending Cork local radio. I do not believe they would get any help or support in this area at present. Therefore, I believe there is a conflict here, a restriction being placed on the development of RTE and I cannot go along with it.
I would also like to hear developed somewhat more extensively the authority to allow local stations to opt out of news and current affairs broadcasting. Under the provisions of section 16 there is no case whatsoever for requiring RTE to share their equipment. I would go along with requiring them to share their equipment, whether it be their masts, towers, sites, installations network or whatever. Why should the Minister have to decide the fee for their providing their services to these new stations? Why cannot they themselves say that they are prepared to provide the service for X number of pounds? Why is it that RTE are being restricted in this way? They can provide the service. The Minister is saying he will require them to provide the service, let the local stations use their masts, sites and so on. Why should they be restricted in terms of charging for those services? When RTE do not make a profit we criticise them but when they are trying to make a profit they are still criticised. Under the provisions of section 16 it is clear that RTE will be told to share their equipment and so on but the Minister will decide the fee.
It is clear from the provisions of section 16 (1) and (2) that the Minister may request or require RTE to co-operate with sound broadcasting contractors and a sound broadcasting contractor shall make to RTE such periodical or other payments in respect of any facilities as the Minister, after consultation with RTE and the Commission, directs. It is quite clear from those provisions that they are not allowed to go into the marketplace with what they have built up over the years. It is their facility, their installation. They should be allowed to sell it, to rent it, to hire it and provide it at market cost. Similarly, this unfair restriction being imposed on RTE in relation to Cork local radio is something I cannot understand.
I might refer also to Millennium Radio. That station was set up, legally, to compete with those people operating illegally. At that time they were allowed to broadcast for six hours a day only in direct competition with illegal broadcasters who were broadcasting for 24 hours a day. I understand that this week those hours have been extended to eight or ten hours. I cannot understand why that restriction should be placed on them. The same applies in relation to the delay in allowing Radio 2 to broadcast for 24 hours a day. This reflects an unfair attitude.
I should like to refer to RTE's great record in providing local radio, particularly in the area believably known as RNG, Radio na Gaeltachta. Radio na Gaeltachta provide an exceptionally good service for the people of the Gaeltacht and respond effectively to their needs. It is an efficient and cheap service representing the kind of model we would like to see developed. RTE, in adhering to the terms of their charter, have proved to be quite exceptional, particularly in the sphere of news and current affairs. Despite the fact that RTE are in direct competition with, perhaps, two of the most developed, progressive and influential television services in the English-speaking world — the BBC and ITV services — they have managed to hold their own, which is to their credit.
Programmes such as "Seven Days" and its successor "Today Tonight" are outstandingly good. They have provided access television in programmes such as "Questions and Answers". I regret the problems that arose during the year. I believe they were criticised unfairly about the provision of service at that time. They were trying to open up the air-waves and in no sense were they trying to manipulate audiences. They provide a fine service with those programmes.
I also like the way they cover proceedings in the Houses of the Oireachtas. Indeed, I look forward to the televising of Oireachtas proceedings. It is a little incongruous to have the present programme "Today in the Oireachtas" in the middle of a music programme. That is unnecessary.
I regret that section 31 lives on under the provisions of section 12 of this Bill. I have always been opposed to section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Act, 1960. In the field of current affairs RTE have been hobbled in direct competition with the Northern and British television stations. They have been restricted in what they can produce and broadcast.
I regret the lack of provision over the years of educational broadcasting. I welcome the establishment of the new FM3 network of programmes. If I go out to my car and tune into the radio stations available on FM frequency — I have many times contacted the RTE technical people in this regard — the power of the broadcasting output from the RTE station is weaker than from the pirate stations. There is no difficulty in getting the two main Dublin pirate stations, Q 102 and Sunshine, down near Navan and Drogheda, but to tune into the Dublin transmitter of RTE at that same level is impossible. It involves retuning.
Because they are breaking the law.
I am talking merely in terms of the kilowatt output. I should like that problem to be addressed also. I thank the Minister for listening so patiently. I hope that he will respond on a number of the issues I have raised, particularly on short-wave radio which I want to discuss at some length again. As I have said before, it is a bit like the curate's egg. I regret the passing of the era of public service broadcasting. There are some very positive provisions in the Bill and there are some very dangerous provisions, such as constituency radio. I am sure there are other downright bad provisions. In general, it is an honest effort to address a growing problem and I look forward to the Committee Stage discussion.
Could Senator Ross wait one moment?
I suggest that we adjourn the House at this stage and resume at 10.30 a.m. tomorrow.
Senator Ross might like to move the adjournment of this debate which would allow him in first tomorrow.
I move the adjournment.
Debate adjourned.
When is it proposed to sit again?
At 10.30 a.m. tomorrow.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22 June 1988.