James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have to start by stating public service broadcasting is a public good that deserves to be publicly funded and protected in the same manner as schools, hospitals, railways, roads and other public services are. RTÉ, however, is not a public good in its own right. The need for public service broadcasting can be and is met in multiple ways, through multiple channels and media. As my colleague, Deputy Jack Chambers, noted, the communications committee made a number of recommendations in a detailed report that, by and large, have not yet been taken up by the Government. For a number of years, we, on this side of the House, have argued that a public service broadcasting fund should be created, with revenue raised from public service broadcasting charges - a television licence fee and a device independent broadcasting charge, or whatever we end up calling it - being ring-fenced and made available to content producers that satisfy criteria for indigenous, high quality, homemade productions, whether they are drama, factual or current affairs programmes, or sports or local coverage, as long as they satisfy the metrics of public service broadcasting. There is no good reason we cannot do it. It would be a competitive model that would allow content producers to pitch in and draw down funds from a publicly funded resource.

We have recently seen the best and worst of RTÉ. Dee Forbes had a heated interview with Bryan Dobson who, at his best, gave no quarter to his boss. We all accept that changes are needed, but Ms Forbes, in her defence of the changes, indicated that RTÉ 2 would become a "window" to the RTÉ Player. We all know that online programming will play a significant role in the future and that online on-demand services are needed, but the RTÉ Player can hardly boot itself up in the morning or play a programme without crashing during the advertisements. It cannot be so difficult to get it right, given that Netflix runs seamlessly at any hour of the night or day on any device. If RTÉ is to get its house in order and move online, it should at least get the RTE Player working.

See this speech in context