As I recall, I raised in the House by way of oral question the attitude the Minister proposed to adopt at the time of the take-over of Sunday Newspapers Limited by the Independent Group. The Minister of State who has introduced this order was answering questions then and was extremely forthcoming in reply to supplementaries. The Minister made clear her concern at the state of affairs and indicated that the Government, and her Department, were investigating the situation and that action would be taken in the reasonably near future on it. I am sure that this order represents the action she was then contemplating and which the Department have thought appropriate. This is a very necessary and positive step because for too long our attitude, especially the attitude of our public institutions such as the Oireachtas, to what the Constitution describes as the citizens' rightful liberty of expression, has been a neutral one. We have been slow to take positive steps to encourage and facilitate that rightful liberty of expression. On some occasions we have been content to do nothing when we should have been taking action to protect that liberty when it was under threat.
I make that statement in the knowledge of the fact that there is always a certain gulf fixed between the Oireachtas, in particular, and the newspapers which, among other institutions, embody this rightful liberty of expression. One might best describe it as being a relationship of armed neutrality and, having straddled both sides of that fence, I suspect that that is probably the right kind of attitude for us to have between each other. At the same time I am sure that those who have the best interests of the newspaper industry at heart, and not just the best interests of that industry but the best interests of the people at heart, will welcome this as a positive step which has substantial good implications.
The situation with which it is dealing is fairly readily described as one in which there is an increasing concentration of newspaper ownership in this country. In The Irish Times of 18 January 1979 there is a report of a survey produced on behalf of the European Commission which stated:
Newspaper publishing in Ireland is highly concentrated in terms of ownership, . . . .
It goes on to say:
But the survey, carried out last year by a team of Irish consultants, says that while such an advanced degree of concentration would be seen as alarming in a large country like Britain or West Germany, it should not be so regarded in a small country like Ireland, or Denmark.
Indeed the report says that if population is taken into account, there is less concentration in the smaller countries. It points that the United Kingdom has a population 18 times that of Ireland, but has only six times as many morning newspapers, four times as many Sundays, 26 times as many evenings and 12 times as many weeklies.
The final paragraph says:
Newspaper publishing here, the report says, is dominated by the Independent Group, which has a 43% share of the morning paper market, a 42% share of the evening, and a 33% share of the Sunday market. The Independent and the Irish Press Ltd. together have well over 50% of the total newspaper market.
With all due respects to the authors of this report I cannot agree that the advanced degree of concentration which they discern in the Irish situation is not something that we should worry about on the basis of the fact that, comparatively speaking, we do rather better than the more densely populated countries. The important reality here is not the relative position of press ownership in Ireland compared to other countries but the absolute position within our own borders, and that absolute has been deteriorating steadily over the past few years. The take-over by Independent Newspapers of Sunday Newspapers Limited at a single stroke reduced the number of news sources here from six to five. These five sources are RTE, which is controlled, sometimes I think despite the best efforts of the Government by the RTE Authority under the framework of the Broadcasting Acts, the Independent Group of Newspapers, The Irish Press Group, The Irish Times and the Cork Examiner. We must not ignore the fact that the major group we are talking about here, the Irish Independent Group, quite apart from their holdings and their share of the national market, also have a large and increasing share of the provincial market. Their share of the provincial market is concentrated in turn along the densely populated east coast from Dundalk to Wicklow and Wexford. It is this combination of circumstances which creates the situation to which this order is addressing itself.
When one looks at the structure of these enterprises, it is very plain to see that the ultimate decisions about the world that will be supplied to the readers of these national and local newspapers can be made by a very small group of people. The Cork Examiner is controlled by one family: The Irish Press is controlled by a small group of shareholders, the Irish Independent Group is controlled by a small group of shareholders, and could quite conceivably be controlled by one individual, and The Irish Times Limited is controlled by a trust but like many enterprises of this kind is deeply indebted to banking institutions, and that also raises problems in connection with the independence and the ultimate survival of a free press here.
Apart from the concentration of ownership, there is another aspect of the problem which I should mention very briefly, that is, the constraints which tend to make newspapers as institutions more rather than less vulnerable to threats of merger or takeover and to the creation of monopolies. The National Prices Commission in their Monthly Report, July 1978, put the case for the special nature of newspapers very clearly. In paragraph 8.3 they said:
The newspaper industry is fairly unique in that it must operate, to be free, entirely in the open market, or rather, in two markets, for, the newspaper depends on advertising as much as on direct sales. It has collected its readership on the basis of its news service or its political line or its entertainment value and has then sold its audience onwards to a series of advertisers. . . . The newspaper had therefore become economically an extremely delicate and complex phenomenon; a thing dependent on the narrowest of margins, sensitive to the mildest winds of change; an economic downturn in a given society causes a drop in advertising and a newspaper is thrown into sudden loss,
That was a very sensible and straightforward statement of the situation as it affects newspapers. I believe that while this instrument we are debating here today should be welcomed, the Government should be looking in terms of a positive assistance to the industry in the name of facilitating and encouraging what the Constitution calls rightful liberty or expression.
In the issue of Forum published by the Council of Europe, No. 1-2/78 there is a very perceptive article on this theme by Claude Durieux, journalist with Le Monde who points out that in relation to France every year the Government give positive assistance to the press. He goes on to say:
This assistance takes various forms: preferential postal rates. . . . lower rates of VAT, tax exemption for up to 80% of the profits made by dailies in the form of investment allowances, subsidies to offset the rising costs of newsprint etc.
As a result of this policy about 10,000 publications out of a total of just under 15,000 qualify for positive Government help of one kind or another.
In Ireland the situation is almost the reverse. If one looks across the spectrum of different European countries, one will find that between one thing and another, there are 14 possible ways in which Governments can positively strengthen the newspaper industry in order to avoid a diminution in the outlets for news and creative expression. Of these 14 possible ways of providing positive help to newspapers, Ireland operates only one—training and research grants. The time has surely come in the name of freedom of expression which is built into our Constitution not just to take fire brigade actions as are envisaged in this order, helpful though they may be, but to think in terms of positive help for an industry whose not only survival but development is essential for our democracy.
It is important and it is serious that we should have only five national sources of news in this country. The Government as well as trying to ensure that these sources of news should not be further reduced, should be adopting positive policies to ensure that there are more sources of national news. The danger is that the trend is always towards monopolies. We have already heard rumours of the possible involvement of newspaper interest in local radio stations, for example. While appearing to add to the channels of information and communication to the public, this would only add further to the monopoly situation. This is not a matter which can be brought within the scope of this order because it refers specifically to newspapers. I would hope that if there is a development of local broadcasting the Minister would be very conscious of the danger of the extension of the monopolies.
I welcome the proposal. The Minister deserves to be congratulated for a response to a situation, even though unfortunately one national source of news has already been absorbed into another. I trust that the Minister and her successors will operate this order conscientiously in the best interest of the community and of freedom of expression.
