What the Minister heard from me was that ordinary legislation in connection with the Broadcasting Authority was normally legislation on which any Deputy would be entitled to speak and that if the Minister was looking for a very short debate it was placing this side of the House and, perhaps, some Deputies on the Minister's side of the House in a difficulty, that it was curtailing the right of discussion. The Fianna Fáil Party has agreed to take this Bill with the deletion mentioned by the Minister as a special Bill in order to enable the proper payment to be made to the RTE Authority.
We may, perhaps, have some reason to be a little critical of the urgency in connection with this Bill which, to some extent, may have arisen out of the Minister's absence last week because despite the fact, as the Leader of the Opposition said earlier today, that all of us welcome the honour conferred on the Minister by the University of Ghana, there are priorities to which he should have regard such as his responsibility to RTE. In order to further correct the impression given by the Minister, which he may not have intended to give, I would say we in Fianna Fáil are entirely in favour of providing the necessary capital required by the RTE Authority so that a choice of programmes can be made available to people in the single channel area.
There are many questions Members may wish to ask which they will have an opportunity of asking on the promised Bill in January in regard to broadcasting and the Minister's responsibility for it. From the Opposition's point of view there is considerable dissatisfaction because of the avoidance by the Government since the last general election of participation on radio or television in debates with the Opposition. Since the general election last year there has been a persistent reluctance on the part of the Government to confront the Opposition on television. It is obvious to us that the Government Information Service has utilised television to the maximum extent for the advantage of Ministers whilst, at the same time, those Ministers refuse to take part in debates with us. Although perfectly legitimate, this has all the appearance of a backdoor method of utilising television for political motives.
Members will, I am sure, highlight the Minister's responsibility with regard to television, telephones, postal charges and the other activities of the Minister. They may take advantage of the next Bill to outline the confusion that appears to have been caused by the Minister in the single channel area with regard to the possibility of a choice of programme. They may also take the opportunity to point to the confusion, uncertainty and suspicion created amongst both divided communities in the North in the current dangerous situation by some of the intrusions of the Minister when engaging in his own specialised views on these matters.
I am sure some Members will also be anxious to express their views on the Minister's excursions into the very sensitive areas of identity, culture, and language where he has been so successful in stirring up divisiveness and controversy instead of pursuing constructive attitudes. There is also the matter of minibudgets involving substantial increases in telephone and postal charges and television licences.
On the subject of increased television licences, an increase of 33? per cent was announced by the Department on behalf of the Minister last September. Because of the manner in which it was announced I took a rather serious view of it. The Government Information Service press release, which I quote, said:
As RTE salaries and operational costs have risen during the past 12 months, the Authority finds that without an increase in revenue it is unable to discharge its statutory obligation, under the Broadcasting Act, 1960, to be financially selfsupporting.
Accordingly, the RTE Authority has applied to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs for an increase in the television licence fees.
The following increases were granted: ordinary licence fees went up from £9 to £12 and colour licences went up from £15 to £20. I question these increases not on the basis that justifiable increases should not be permitted but on the basis that adequate reasons were not given by the Minister. I have in mind the fact that the previous increase took place only 11 months before, in October, 1973. At the time I expressed the view that in the prevailing dangerous inflationary situation the Government should not just approve an increase of this nature but should give adequate reasons as to why it was necessary. If the reasons given by the GIS on behalf of the Minister related only to current expenses, then some explanation of how the expenses had occurred so substantially in such a short time should have been given because at that stage we had inflation rising to around 20 per cent and economists were taking the view that, if it were allowed to go further, things would become impossible. I put the point at that stage that any decision by the Government to allow any state company to increase its charges beyond something in line with the standard set by the employer/labour conference should be supported by adequate reasons. I suggested that amongst such reasons might be trying to provide a wider choice for people in the single channel area, or if the authority intended to reduce some of the advertising especially those advertisements popularising the purchase of alcohol by young people or, perhaps, the improvement of colour television. These reasons, if given, would justify some public confidence.
As the Minister and all of us are well aware television has become almost a priority in the lives of the people. Those who have television sets do not want to part with them. In that sense one might describe the owners of television sets, who have their licences paid up, as being a captive audience. People are not in a position to throw out their sets. They do not want to and they have, therefore, to accept any increases imposed on them even if such increases add to the inflationary spiral. I did a rough calculation of what the increases could have amounted to and, if one included the regular increases in the cost of advertising, it came out as somewhat over £2 million. I felt then and still feel that, in those circumstances, and having regard to the first sign last September on the part of this Government in the form of speeches by both the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Foreign Affairs about the need to tighten our belts and the danger of inflation to the economy a more detailed explanation was called for. I would submit to the Minister that there is a grave need for any Government on behalf of a semi-State body, such as RTE, to retain on behalf of that body public confidence and good will. In this case this was not done. People say to me: "They are the Government", or "That is a semi-State body. They can increase it and we can do nothing about it." One is left to conclude that neither the Minister nor the Government bothered to examine the RTE case for the increase.
I said earlier that in his Estimate speech in 1973, without first examining the position, the Minister committed himself, or appeared to commit himself, to a concept of open broadcasting and, intentionally or otherwise, created a belief amongst people living in the single channel areas that all TV channels available along the east coast would be made available to them. I submit that the demand on the part of some groups in the south and west was to some degree accelerated by the Minister's somewhat premature remarks in June, 1973. He helped to create an expectation. Indeed, some of the famous 14 point promises made by his Government would justify the title: "the Government of Great Expectations". I submit that one of the expectations created in the minds of some people was that there would be open broadcasting in the single channel areas.
I questioned the Minister at the time. As reported at column 470, volume 268 of the Official Report, 24th October, 1973, I said:
Would the Minister not now admit that in view of the many complexities and obstacles, not to mention the cost, of this whole area of open broadcasting that his earlier announcements and the publicity attending those announcements were, to some extent, misleading to the public and were based on premature assumptions on his part?
The Minister said he wanted to proceed in the direction of the widest possible freedom of choice. The matter is confused in the minds of quite a few people. In reply to a question tabled by me on open broadcasting the Minister said:
I regret this delay but at least a date can now be set by which residents in the single channel areas of the south and west can expect to enjoy a choice of viewing.
That was 14 months ago and there is still confusion in the minds of some groups, judging by correspondence and petitions I have received in recent months. Is it not time that the Minister told these people what the options are and found out what they want? It is time to say what form of choice can be made available to people because they are entitled to know where they stand.
Speaking at Oxford on July 7th last the Minister suggested that if he did not secure permission to rebroadcast one of the Northern channels he would consider doing so anyway. Subsequently on October 19th, while he was attending the Labour Party Conference in Galway, the Minister met representatives of committees seeking multi-channel television. He indicated that he intended to rebroadcast UTV or BBC in full.
In the text of a Government Information Services release referring to the problem of getting permission to rebroadcast he said:
Other countries in similar situations, such as Finland, have permitted the rebroadcasting of overspill signals. In the case of one country, Italy, where the Government decided to prevent such retransmissions, the Courts actually declared this step unconstitutional and the retransmissions were resumed. In reaching this decision, the Italian Constitutional Court held that the Government restrictions were "barring the way to the free circulation of ideas, comprising an essential service to the democratic way of life, and finally creating a kind of national self-sufficiency in the sources of information, all things which are contrary to the Constitution."
The Minister continued:
While the Italian Constitution is not of course identical to our own, I believe it to be inspired by broad democratic ideals which we hold in common.
Thus it is clear that the simultaneous rebroadcasting of foreign television channels is already a feature of the international scene.
May I submit that that kind of talk is misleading? What the Minister was talking about was a constitutional aspect of rebroadcasting. This has nothing to do with private law and the actual rights of the owners of other television channels to rebroadcast programmes which very many of them are only entitled to broadcast to set audiences.
In a statement at that time I said that while we are all anxious that as much choice as possible should be made available to people in the single channel areas, some questions arose. I asked did the Minister mean that he proposed to transmit one of the British signals without the approval of the station concerned? Was he proposing to relay BBC or ITV exclusively and not use the new channel in any way for any home produced programme? Would he be exposing RTE or the Department of Posts and Telegraphs or himself to civil action by the performers in programmes he would be transmitting without their approval? Would he be causing conflict regarding labour rights? I also asked him if he had received the advice of the RTE authorities on his proposal and if so what advice had they given him.
It is important to highlight these matters to try to clear up the confusion. It is not a function of the Opposition spokesman to create obstacles in the matter of achieving a better choice or to explain for the Minister what these difficulties are. It is the Minister's duty to make clear to people in the single channel areas what he can make available to them and to find out from them what they would like. It seems to me to be a bit misleading to suggest that people— and I have the correspondence here from them—who want three channels are being told that they can have one. They are not being consulted regarding any possibility of a further or broader choice. The Minister knows that at present only one channel can be provided. I suggest that he should be fair to these people and let them know that publicly. I do not think the Minister should assume that people want continuous BBC or ITV broadcasts whether or not he can provide them. I am sure the Minister has the information available to him and certainly the information to me indicates that the difficulties in this area are far too great.
I should now like to refer to a number of other matters. The first relates to an incident reported in the Press in regard to the Minister and an official of RTE at the Labour Party conference in Galway. It would appear from the report that the Minister became involved in arguments with an official of RTE. I shall quote from The Irish Times of 23rd October:
At the Labour Party Conference in Galway, Dr. Conor Cruise-O'Brien, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, was heard to say (to an RTE representative) in front of a number of reporters that a programme on internment run last week was the last exercise of that type that would be allowed.
In the same newspaper the following day there was this quotation:
Thus, when the Minister publicly and personally criticised the head of the current affairs grouping in the station in a Galway hotel last weekend he had not seen the programme.
Whilst the Minister is quite entitled, under section 31, to protect the public from certain types of programmes and whether the encounter in question was intended to be humorous it could be interpreted by some readers as an example of a Minister appearing to undermine the authority of the executive of a semi-State body. The relations between a Minister and the semi-State body responsible to him have to be proper and disciplined and not casual or open to misinterpretations by the media.
Even at best in this case the Minister by his indiscretion could have compromised, or may have compromised, the RTE authority and executive in dealing with a question of internal discipline within RTE which is a matter for RTE and not for the Minister or any of the three parties in this House. As Opposition spokesman, I could have commented on this and made an attack on the Minister accusing him of attempting to bypass the 1960 Broadcasting Act but I left the matter aside to see if there would be any corrections.
I should like to refer to another item, written by a regular television correspondent, published in The Irish Press of 16th November, 1974:
Since it took up office the present authority has been asserting itself in an area of management which previous authorities left to the administrative and executive employees of RTE. It has insisted on being represented on interview boards, for example, and its tentacles have reached down deeper and deeper into the day-by-day decision-making and programme-making areas of the organisation.
The theory of subsidiarity of function seems to have gone for its tea. The party commissars are now in charge, it would seem, as they were in French and other European broadcasting systems.
That is a quotation from an article written by an experienced television commentator. It is his own quotation. I would have expected some correction of it. If there has been a departure from normal practice on the part of the new authority appointed by the Minister, it should have been explained and the reasons given. Otherwise, we on the Opposition side, can hardly be blamed if we ask if there is some kind of undercover activity going on in RTE, possibly on behalf of the Government or Ministers.
It is of paramount importance that the national broadcasting service be seen by the public as at all times and in every way impartial. In relation to the Minister's responsibility for RTE I believe it is his duty in relation to the changes that may come in broadcasting to publicly declare his attitude towards RTE. Is the Minister prepared to make a public commitment that he will fulfil his obligation to maintain RTE as a fully fledged national radio and television service which should be concerned, as is stated in the report of the Television Broadcasting Review committee, with safeguarding, enriching and strengthening the cultural, social and economic fabric of the whole of Ireland.
I refer to that at this stage in our economic history because I consider it to be of paramount importance that we, on all sides of this House, should regard the strengthening and maintenance of RTE as being vital to what the Broadcasting Review committee refers and to our own economic future. I am in favour of providing as much choice as possible for people in the single channel area. They are entitled to what we can give them but we have an obligation towards ourselves and we must remember that no foreign channel is going to be interested in the survival of Irish industry or in the survival of anything to do with Ireland. I put these questions because many people want to know exactly where the Minister stands in that regard. They want to know because the Minister, through some of his public utterances, has created doubts in their minds. On behalf of the Opposition, I support the passage of this Bill this evening.
