Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 June 2022
57. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media her Department’s strategy to support the Irish language broadcasting; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32416/22]
View answerThe media sector, and broadcasting in particular, plays an important role in supporting our identity as a nation, our arts and culture, our sports, and our native language.
TG4 continues to make a huge contribution to both Irish broadcasting and the preservation and promotion of the Irish language. Its broad range of programming, its ‘súil eile’ approach, it's Cine4 initiative with Screen Ireland and the BAI, and its exploitation of cutting edge technology ensures Irish language audiovisual content remains relevant to modern Irish audiences.
Over the past two years I have secured substantial increases in the Exchequer funding allocation for TG4, with increases of of €3.5m and €4.2m in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The additional €4.2m provided this year was the largest ever annual increase in Exchequer funding for TG4, and brought their total allocation to €44.922m, over €1m greater than the amount recommended by the BAI in its Five Year Review of the public service broadcasters.
RTÉ also plays a central role in fostering Irish language broadcasting, as part of its statutory function to provide a comprehensive range of programming in both the Irish and English language that reflects the cultural diversity of the whole island of Ireland. RTÉ published an action plan for Irish language programming in 2019 for the period 2019-2022 that set out to dramatically increase the number of programmes in Irish on RTÉ linear channels and to ensure a wide range of programmes. RTÉ has committed to 600 hours of Irish language content for 2022. This plan includes acquired content from TG4 under their "Ar Scáth a Cheile" partnership initiative.
I am delighted to be the first Minister to contribute to the Irish Language Broadcasting Fund operated by Northern Ireland Screen. My Department is providing €1.2m per year from 2021 to 2023 to support Irish language broadcasting projects in Northern Ireland. Of this funding, €1m is being provided to Northern Ireland Screen for the development of Irish Language content and €100,000 each to RTÉ and TG4 to promote their content in Northern Ireland. This funding is supporting the independent production sector across the island, and has a target of providing a minimum of 75 hours of high quality Irish language content for broadcasters.
