Paul Murphy: Calls to Scrap Regressive TV Licence Fee

Minister, this is a regressive tax, no matter how you look at it, the poorest eligible household in the country pays 160 euro and the richest household in the country pays 160 euros. It is a regressive, unjust tax that hundreds of thousands of people are refusing to pay, a number that has increased in the context of the outrage of what was happening at the very tops of RTE, the massive pay for those at the very top and the behaviour in terms of the spending of public money on flip-flops and exclusive clubs and all the rest. You say here that you cannot comment, but you have commented to RTE saying that your preference is for keeping some form of TV licence. Is it not time to stop dragging 60 people to court a day for non-payment of the TV licence, to see the writing on the wall, to scrap this regressive tax and instead to properly fund RTE as opposed to pursuing a privatisation and outsourcing agenda? Thank you both for your contributions. As I have stated, and as Minister Martin has stated, we will be making a decision on this in the coming weeks. As a Government, we appreciate and understand the importance of public service media for a well-functioning democracy, but also essential for cultural development, social cohesion and wellbeing. As such, it requires a funding model that provides long-term certainty, is sustainable and vitally protects the independence of media providers. Such funding is not only crucial for public service broadcasters, TG Cahar and RTE, but also for independent producers and the wider national, local and community broadcasters. Any new funding will need to reflect that in the context of public service content. We have had a number of reports with ongoing reform of RTE, which has obviously been important context to why a decision hasn't been made in the last 12 months. What I have stated publicly is that the vast majority of people continue to pay their TV licence and should continue to pay that in the context of the system we have presently. We know that this year, for example, up to the 21st of June, 358,000 licences were sold and over 800,000 last year in total. So the majority of people are paying, are contributing. And both of you in your remarks have said abolish the fee and pay for it centrally. But we have pressures on public expenditure across all different government departments. And when we have a system of contribution that the majority of people pay for, we shouldn't just abandon that and again look for the central government to fund this. And that's why in my public remarks I have said that an ongoing contribution from the Irish public is important in the context of reform. To answer Deputy Doherty's question, we haven't yet decided what that model will be and we are sincere about trying to bring this to conclusion in the coming weeks. And that's what we'll do working with Minister Mark and Minister Donoghue and the Taoiseach and the Taoiseach. The Minister gave the figures for payment levels suggesting they indicated that the vast majority of people are paying. But I think you said something like 800,000 paid last year, but 358,000 people had paid halfway through this year. In total there's 1.8 million houses in the state, about half a million of those would be exempt. It leaves 1.3 million households and you're saying over a half year period 400,000 people have paid 800,000 people. That indicates over a third of people are refusing to pay the TV licence. And people are voting with their feet on this. You should take the advice given a number of years ago of the Future of Media Commission to get rid of this TV licence. You should look at the multiple European countries, which over the past five or six years, Belgium, France, Iceland and others have scrapped their versions of the TV licence. You should get rid of this regressive charge. But I would also warn you not to replace it with another sort of regressive charge, this time simply collected by revenue. Yes, we need to properly fund, we need to increase funding for public service broadcasting. The question is who pays? Is it a regressive, unjust tax on the poorest families in our society? Or do we tax the big social media giants who are parasitical on our main media, effectively suck up the advertising? We need a big tech tax on them to fund proper public service broadcasting. What I've said publicly is what I'm restating in here, that a discussion is ongoing. We're committed to the introduction of a new, sustainable and fair funding model and making a decision on that in the coming weeks. In the context of Deputy Doherty's question, we're exploring all options on what decisions we could take in the context of a new and reformed funding model with the contribution. I said we haven't landed on any particular model or system of payment collection or in the context of the licence fee. But we need to fix the system and strengthen compliance. Majority of people are paying the TV licence fee, despite you speaking about a certain number that aren't. But the vast majority are paying the TV licence fee. And that underpins independence in terms of public service media. And yes, we need to have ongoing support to put that on a sustainable and long-term funding position. And I support, as I've said in other domains, the ongoing contribution from the public around public service media and on the TV licence. And we are committed to making a decision on this in the coming weeks. But I think in fiscal terms, the solution to everything isn't just to abandon the contribution that people make, whether it's on tax or on the TV licence. People, we have to pay for the wider expenditure that we have in our state, including public service media. And if we were to remove the TV licence or the ongoing contribution, that money has to be found elsewhere. We don't have an endless amount of money that can just be allocated to new expenditure lines. And that's why we have to prioritise spending and why we need to make sure we have an ongoing contribution. And to your question, I said we're exploring all options in the context of a reformed funding model. So have you used engagement revenue or not? We're exploring all options. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair.