Last evening before the adjournment, I was referring to the great amenity and luxury added to our life and our way of living by the invention of television. Television has come at a time when the standard of living is rapidly increasing and when this luxury is available not only to wealthy people but to people of average means. In the past we always associated the idea of luxuries with wealthy people but nowadays wealth is spread to a greater extent over the community and television can be availed of by almost every section.
One has only to cast one's eye to the roofs of houses, large and small, all over our cities and towns, wherever television is to be picked up, to realise how universal the use of television has become. Therefore its power and importance for good or evil are enormous and the responsibility of those who control and produce its programmes is very great.
In many things we tend to copy Britain and, I think, wrongly so. We very often take things from Great Britain which were designed for an industrial country and apply them with very little change and very little thought to our own agriculturally dominated country. However, in the operation of television we would be well advised to follow the methods of the British Television Authority. Their programmes are varied and they have a generally high standard of quality both in subject and presentation. As a constant viewer of television, I think they are hard to beat. I have seen television in other countries. I think the British service is really a very good headline for us.
The Minister in his opening statement said that from the moment the service goes on the air it would have to stand comparison with the programmes of two television organisations in Britain. As I have already said, if we are to follow the British line our service will have to be as good as, if not better than, they are. I stated yesterday that I.T.V. are spending something like £17,000,000 per annum on programmes and the B.B.C. spend £16,000,000 per annum. At first sight this would seem to be a very formidable task because in television we have the first example in this country of a free trade area. It is not possible to put a protective ring around the country in regard to television and cut off other services from competing with our service. We shall be on the same screen so that we are fighting in a free trade area really and as we have not got sufficient funds to compete purely on a financial basis and in the big way which these many millions of pounds are able to command, we shall have to produce programmes of quality as I said last night.
The first thing we can do is to give something that is Irish. The second thing is—and the Minister also referred to this—that we shall have to employ imported films and telerecordings. In this second category we can, I am told, in spite of the large sums of money available to the British service, compete. These films and telerecordings are comparatively cheap since in many cases they have already earned money on the screens of the cinema.
The Minister went on to say that the quality of our programmes will depend on the judicious selection by the Authority of the best imported programmes available. I think he is absolutely right there. That involves the question of the people who will give us these programmes and this service. Upon them, naturally, will depend the quality because they will be the people who will have to decide what is to be given us and what is to be imported in the form of films and telerecordings and, of course, the live broadcasts from our own country.
The selection of the members of the Authority will be a task of the first importance. So much depends upon the personnel that it is very important that difficult to combine all these character- the best people should be got for these positions. I hope, and I believe, that the conditions and qualifications for appointment to the Authority will be competence for the position and that no political considerations will be brought to bear. This is not directed at the present Government only. I am merely talking now about the Authority which is here for the future. I hope that neither now nor in the future will precedence be given to political considerations in appointing the right people to do the job.
Many of us see the danger in too much Ministerial control over the Authority. We see the danger of an element of political interference which can manifest itself in many ways. Last night this matter was referred to in connection with what was actually put on the screen. A person may make himself persona grata or somebody more desirable to the Minister. That is one of the dangers inherent in having either State or semi-State control of activities but it is one we have got to face. We have got to rely, first of all, upon the terms on which this Bill is based and, secondly, upon the quality of the Minister who is to exercise the powers he is to get. When this Bill leaves this House and the Dáil, a considerable number of changes will have to be made. I hope that much more discretion will be entrusted to the Authority who are about to operate the service.
At first sight it would seem, as Senator O'Brien suggested, that the maximum number on the Authority should be reduced from nine to five. I think, perhaps, from the point of view of efficiency that would be desirable but on second thoughts, when one considers the number of facets that will have to be dealt with in connection with television, it would seem, perhaps, that a larger Authority would be better because, first of all, you must have people on the Authority who know something about entertainment. You must also have people with a cultural outlook, an outlook in regard to the language and the national outlook, not to mention the business side of the matter dealing with finance and so on. Perhaps it would be rather istics in five people and a smaller group might, in fact, be a biased group. However, that is a matter that probably will be discussed on Committee Stage, when more may be said about it.
In 1953, we were told by the Minister, Comhairle Radio Éireann was appointed, which consisted of five persons. On that occasion they were persons outside the State service. On this occasion there is no mention in the Bill as to whether or not that is to be the qualification. There is no mention in the Bill as to whether the members will be part-time or whole-time, or as to whether the Director General is to be a whole-time official. I should like clarification from the Minister on these points.
The most important thing, after the quality of the television programmes, is, of course, the question of finance. There are two sources of revenue for the financing of the operation. One is the revenue from the licences and the other is the advertising revenue. There is little doubt that the revenue from licences will be very large and on an increasing scale, especially if we can expand our economy in this country, because the first thing that any wage earner or salary earner will buy nowadays—almost before the motor car, I would say—is a television set. It is quite certain now that, if given a choice between a motor car and a television set, people will go for the television set and eventually there will hardly be a house in the entire country without a set. Therefore, very good revenue is assured. It will depend only on the number of citizens we are able to keep in the country, the number we can employ and so prevent from leaving us.
On the advertising side, a great deal depends on the way the advertising is handled. This is a business matter and any kind of purely bureaucratic body of people who merely sit down and say they have something for which people must come to them, and that they are offering a privilege, will find their advertising business will not be very successful. This is a business matter in which there will have to be the merchant's outlook, that the Television Authority has something to sell and has to sell it to the buyer. The buyer is on the right foot on this occasion and there must be no feeling that he is being granted a favour by being allowed to advertise on our screens.
I see in this Bill the same idea as was prevalent at the time of the original Control of Manufactures Act. At the time that Act was introduced, we seemed to think we had something here to offer that it was a privilege to obtain, namely, a footing in the Irish industrial market, and we discriminated very blatantly against foreign capital on that occasion. Today we are forced to offer all sorts of incentives to foreign capital and foreign industrialists to invest here. We found that, after all, it was not a land flowing with milk and honey, where everybody wanted to open up and to invest capital. I think we have learned a very salutary lesson in that regard. I do not deny that it was important to foster Irish manufactures in every way but we did too definitely and positively discriminate against foreigners. We made them feel they were foreigners, that we did not want them, that they were here only on sufferance.
In this Bill, we appear, once more, to show discrimination against foreigners, at least by implication in Section 20. As I said, I believe we shall be very pleased to receive applications for advertising on television here from any source, whether home or foreign, and, indeed, it is quite probable that the really large advertisers will be non-Irish, because in the Report of the Television Commission, it was pointed out that there is a comparatively small amount of money spent in this country on advertising. A great deal of the money for advertising will probably have to be taken from the budgets which people make for newspaper advertising and other forms of advertising because there is a very limited industrial economy here and there is not a very large sum available for advertising. Therefore, we simply must depend on outsiders. Television is one of the media that do, in fact, attract large advertisers, the large international advertisers from all over the world, especially if we are moving, as we seem to be at the moment, into a free trade world. Screens have a great potential if a free trade Europe does come into existence and, if we are part of it, it may very easily reflect itself in advertising on our television service.
Under Section 20, the Authority are encouraged to fix preferential rates for Irish advertisers and advertisements in the Irish language. This is an unwise provision. As I said, the aim and the idea are understandable, but, as a practical business proposition, it is undesirable. The power to fix preferential rates is all right and should be given to the Authority and is a power that should be exercised by the Authority, but it should be exercised on their own judgment and not only with the idea of fostering Irish or our national aims but as something that is forthcoming for, say, a very big order or a long term order. If given a preferential rate, people will very often order in bigger figures and for longer terms. Obviously, a person ordering big and ordering for a long term should get preferential treatment, whether he be a foreigner or Irish.
This idea of giving preferential treatment in State or semi-State bodies has now got its headline in C.I.E. where, I understand, it has been introduced by the new Director of C.I.E., very successfully. Of course, it is an ordinary business operation which is used every day in commercial life. I should like to see the Authority being trusted and being allowed to utilise this power in any way they think fit and for any reason they think fit. We must trust them to do it for the best business reasons and not for reasons of friendship or anything else.
Incidentally, I think Senator Ó Maoláin was quite right when he said that it is very probable that foreign manufacturers will use the Irish language in their advertisements more often than Irish manufacturers because many of them will think that Irish is used more extensively than it actually is in the country. I think you will find already it is true in cinema advertising that the Irish language is very much more used by international advertisers than by our own manufacturers and business people.
Subsection (4) of Section 20 says:
The Authority shall not accept any advertisement which is directed towards any religious or political end.
I understand that Senator Stanford saw a very good and tolerant idea in that, but I confess I do not quite understand this prohibition. I think it is a bit too severe. Probably something could be done to avoid religious missionary work being carried on through television but I think the section, as it stands, precludes the advertising of gymkhanas, concerts and commercial undertakings of that kind to provide funds for church building. It seems that they would not be allowed to be advertised, but perhaps that is not so and I hope the Minister will elucidate that point.
One of the most interesting things on British television is the discussion and advertising shown at election times by political Parties; even some of its religious discussions are most interesting. I know this has nothing to do with advertising, but I think we are on rather dangerous ground in this subsection, and I believe this kind of thing should be left to the good sense of the Authority. If there were to be anything blatantly wrong put on television we have always the public and they will not be long in crying out about it. Things like these should be left to the Television Authority and not to the omniscient authority over there who keeps cutting in all the time under the provisions of the Bill.
Senator Hayes said he was not happy about the Authority's freedom of action, and I am in full agreement with him. However, this Bill is only in its introductory stages and perhaps as we proceed with it we shall ease down on these impositions of Ministerial authority. Quite rightly, in his opening statement the Minister said he desired to give the Authority all freedom possible and it is desirable to give statutory sanction to the position of independence which has, in practice, been accorded to sound broadcasting in recent years. If, in fact, a position of independence has been in practice in broadcasting in recent years, it seems to me it would be much better to give this Authority the same freedom, but instead of retaining and giving statutory sanction to that independence we are taking it away.
Speaking generally, an outstanding characteristic of our State—I think it will not be denied—is a reluctance on the part of the Government to trust citizens with many activities that might well be left to them. Many of our citizens are not only resigned to the State guiding and controlling their destinies and activities but they acquiesce in that state of affairs; not only that, but many demand more and more State benevolence and control. That is evident in practically every Bill that comes before this House. I am always saying this but it seems to be an apt comment on almost every Bill presented to us.
In the case of television we have decided that not only can we not trust private enterprise—we have already turned that down because we feel it could not be controlled by the State— but as set up under this Bill we are putting the new Authority very much under the thumb of the Minister. I hope that when the Bill comes to Committee Stage it may be possible to improve the position in that regard.
We are all glad to see the establishment of a television service and we would all be happy to see it succeed. I wish the Minister every success with this, the first Bill ever introduced in this House in this fashion. I hope that any comments I have made will be taken in the constructive spirit in which they were offered.