I thank the Chairman and members of the joint committee for inviting us to make this presentation. The submission is made on behalf of a coalition of organisations, known as TV Access, which is drawn from across the disability, ageing and poverty sectors. The slide lists the organisations involved in the coalition, which includes the main organisations in the sector. The Disability Federation of Ireland is represented by Ms Joan O'Donnell, I represent the National Council of the Blind and Mr. John-Mark McCafferty represents the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Other members of the coalition include Age Action Ireland, DeafHear, the Irish Deaf Society, the Irish Hard of Hearing Association, the Visually Impaired Computer Society, the Central Remedial Clinic and People with Disabilities in Ireland.
I will set the scene by making a couple of quotations. A European Parliament resolution on the audiovisual media services directive states:
Access to television is a fundamental right. Television is vital in defining the cultural landscape of modern societies and provides a primary source of information, education and entertainment. The audiovisual sector is of fundamental importance for democracy, freedom of expression and cultural pluralism.
Last year, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan, stated:
For digital television to succeed as a replacement for the analogue services it needs to be accessible to all. It must be simple to set up and user friendly, offer more high quality services and channels and the receiver equipment must be affordable".
The TV Access coalition is concerned about accessibility and affordability. There are several ways in which digital television, when it replaces the analogue service, could be inaccessible and unaffordable to a large number of people. For example, it will be inaccessible if programming does not include subtitles, sign language and audio description. Collectively known as access services, these features are essential for the proper understanding and enjoyment of programmes by people who are blind, partially sighted, deaf or hard of hearing. A second threat is the possibility that consumer equipment, namely, digital set-top boxes and remote controls will be inaccessible.
The third issue concerns practical difficulties with making the switch to digital. A number of people, particularly older people, are very reluctant to adopt new technology because it is very difficult for them. There are practical difficulties such as getting the equipment out of the box, plugging it in the correct way, getting it to work, learning to use the remote control and all the new menu services and things like that.
The fourth issue is the cost of switching. Some particularly vulnerable people will have extra costs involved in switching to digital, over and above just buying a set top box. Some set top boxes will not work with older televisions. Some people will find they will need a new television aerial because their aerial cannot pick up the digital signal even though it picked up the analogue signal. People with, for instance, a vision impairment may find they need a set-top box with a text-to-speech capability that will read out the menus, otherwise they cannot use it, and this may cost extra.
There are two basic issues I want to talk about. The first is social inclusion for people with disabilities and older people. The second, which is very relevant today and something we really want to stress, are financial implications for Government. Like all information technologies there is potential for major savings in using them and potential for cost if they are not accessible to older people.
The social inclusion issue is summed up by the first quote I gave the committee from the European Parliament which states, "Television provides a primary source of information, education and entertainment and is of fundamental importance for democracy, freedom of expression and cultural pluralism". If one is excluded from television by dint of it being inaccessible or unaffordable then one is socially excluded from information, education and democracy.
There are several parts to the financial implications which I want to outline for the committee. The first is the simple matter that social exclusion tends to incur costs for the country in terms of supporting people who are more dependent on welfare, health services and that kind of thing. The reduced economic participation by people who are socially excluded reduces the GNP of the country.
The second issue concerns service delivery. Digital television will become a prime service delivery channel. The committee may be aware of a service in the UK called NHS Direct. The National Health Service in the UK found it was spending significant amounts of money on people visiting GPs when they did not need to. If such people had received some basic health information and advice they would not have had to go to a doctor at all. The NHS set up what was originally a telephone helpline which had trained operators which would give very basic health advice. It found it cut down the number of GP visits quite considerably and saved a great deal of money.
It has since put this service on the internet and on digital television because digital television, for many people, is a very easy mechanism to go and get information from. Not everybody wants to use a computer and the internet. It is now available on freeview and Sky by pressing the red button. This is the kind of thing we will see in the future where digital television becomes a channel for these types of services.
The cost savings from doing things in this way are absolutely enormous. A report during the Irish presidency of the EU in 2004 cited research to say the relative costs for Government of doing transactions with citizens by traditional paper channels where letters and forms went backwards and forwards compared to call centres and digital self-service was 100:10:1. The implications of this are that if people cannot access the digital self-service channels through, for instance, digital television, services such as health information or welfare services will have to be delivered through another channel which will cost ten times or 100 times as much. This is the raison d’être for e-Government.
I will summarise what we would see as the inclusion goals for digital television. We would like a situation where everybody is prepared for and able to make the transition from analogue to digital television. We would like fully accessible consumer equipment to be available at an affordable price to anybody who needs it. We would like all programmes to include access services, including subtitles, audio description and sign language. We would like to see the needs of older people and people with disabilities taken into account in all future services. In other words, we seek representation so that their needs and interests can be factored into the decisions made when new services are developed.
We have four recommendations to put to the committee. First, we would like the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to collaborate with us in planning and implementing a switch off awareness campaign and a switch over assistance campaign. In the United Kingdom, the authorities have set aside £600 million for this purpose, with agents travelling the country in vans informing people about the switch off. We accept that funding on that scale will not be allocated in the State. The Department has indicated that it would like, as much as possible, for information to be disseminated through community groups and representative organisations such as ours. We look forward to this collaboration. We must start planning for it as soon as possible so that we can ensure everybody is prepared and that nobody experiences problems in 2012.
Our second recommendation is that the Department convene a digital Ireland stakeholder group as soon as possible. This would comprise representatives of the Government, broadcasters, disability, ageing and poverty groups, manufacturers and regulators. We must sit down together to discuss this issue as a matter of priority so that we can plan effectively for it and make sure it is done as efficiently as possible. Accessibility and affordability should be top of the agenda.
Third, we would like RTE to include accessibility within the minimum receiver requirements for digital terrestrial television. The current requirements hardly mention accessibility or usability features. There is not even a stipulation that remote controls should be easy to use, which is a basic consideration. Other such basic requirements include the ability of set-top boxes to provide audio descriptions as well as subtitles and the display of on-screen text in a clear fashion. These issues should be included in the requirements. In the United Kingdom, one can purchase a set top box with built-in audio description facility in Argos for less than £15. This must be a minimum provision.
Members may already be aware of our fourth recommendation because we circulated information in this regard last year. We would like the Broadcasting Bill 2008 to include a guarantee of effective representation for older people and people with disabilities. If we are not at the table, we cannot influence decisions for the good of everybody — Government and citizens. We seek effective representation on the broadcasting authority of Ireland, the RTE and TG4 boards and the audience councils. Currently, the Bill "allows for" representation of people with disabilities but does not guarantee it. There is no provision for the representation of older people. I thank Deputy McManus for raising these issues in this committee last year.
If these four recommendations are adopted, the objective set out by the Minister, Deputy Ryan, last year will be achieved, that is, digital television will succeed as a replacement for analogue services because it will be accessible to all, simple to set up, user friendly and the receiver equipment will be affordable. That is our goal.