Niamh Smyth: Broadcasting Amendment Bill - Reforming RTE & TG4

Thank you. 20 minutes Minister, thank you very much. Thank you very much Cathaoirleach. I am pleased to introduce the Broadcasting Amendment Bill for consideration of the House on behalf of Minister O'Donoghue. This Bill is a comprehensive legislative proposal which aims to improve transparency, accountability and value for money in our public services media providers, RTE and TG Carhar, and to put in place a statutory framework to support the provision of quality programming and public interest journalism within a secure and sustainable media ecosystem. The Bill implements the key legislative recommendations of two recent major expert-led independent reports. The report on the future of the Media Commission published in July 2022 and the review of governance and culture in RTE carried out by an expert advisory committee chaired by Professor Niamh Brennan published in May 2024. The Future of Media Commission was tasked with developing recommendations on sustainable public funding and other supports to ensure media in Ireland remains sustainable, independent and capable of delivering public service aims. Fourteen of its recommendations will be given effect through this Bill. The expert advisory committee chaired by Professor Brennan was commissioned to examine the corporate governance failings in RTE in July 2023, following the revelations regarding presenter payments and other governance failings. The expert advisory committee delivered a road map for the reform of corporate governance in RTE, while many of the 90 recommendations were for RTE to introduce eight required legislative changes. They have been given effect in the Bill, including the assignment of the Comptroller-in-Order-General as Auditor of RTE. The Bill also implements those elements of the European Media Freedom Act, which relate to the safeguarding of our public services media providers, RTE and TG Carer. The European Media Freedom Act is a landmark piece of EU legislation designed to protect the independence and plurality of media services across the Union. It is vital that we implement it fully as soon as possible, particularly in the context in which Ireland will take up the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Pre-legislative scrutiny has played an important role in the development of the Bill. I'd like to acknowledge the work of the Oireachtas Committee on Media, Committee for Arts, Media and Communications, Culture and Sport, which demonstrated the vital role that pre-legislative scrutiny plays in our legislative process. The Bill takes account of over 30 of the recommendations made by the Committee as part of the pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill provides for reforms in RTE and TG Carer across five key areas. First, the Bill will reform the statutory basis underpinning the corporate governance of RTE and TG Carer. Second, the Bill will enhance the statutory framework through which Commission amon assesses the performance and funding of RTE and TG Carer. The Bill provides for greater transparency on remuneration of staff and relevant contractors by RTE and TG Carer, and reporting on the commission of independent producers, including information on the total cost of production on monetary bands and the percentage of the exchequer contribution. The Bill will strengthen the role and the authority of the audience councils of RTE and TG Carer. Finally, the Bill will extend content regulation by Commission amon to all non-broadcast content made available by RTE and TG Carer. While our public services media providers are important, they also need to sustain an assortment of content provided by a diversity of providers on local, regional and national level. To support this type of public service content, the new framework with public service content set out in the Bill will convert the existing broadcasting fund to a platform-neutral fund known as Caish na mBan. This expanded fund will support the production, distribution and archiving of public service content across all formats by the wider media sector. In addition to the new framework for supporting public service content, the Bill will also require RTE to dedicate at least 25% of their annual public funding to the commissioning of programming from the independent public production sector. The Bill is composed of three parts. Part 2 of the Bill provides the entirety of the substantive amendments to the Broadcasting Act 2009, while part 3 provides for a necessary technical amendment to the Controller and Auditor Act of 1993 to allow for the assignment of that office as Auditor of RTE. I will now outline the detailed provision of the Bill, focusing in particular on the key sections of the Bill. Turning first to the corporate governance of RTE and TGCAR, sections 35, 41 and 62 of the Bill provide for the assignment of the Controller and Auditor General as Auditor of RTE and for the accountability of the Director General to the Committee of Public Accounts in respect of RTE's annual audited financial statements and value for money matters. Sections 32 and 33 of the Bill clarify and expand provisions relating to the functions, duties, accountability, appointment and dismissal of Directors General of RTE and TGCAR. Section 32 provides that a Director General is expressly accountable to the Board for the efficient and effective management of the provider and the performance of his or her functions and expressly prohibits them from taking part of any Board deliberations regarding their own performance, their removal or their replacement. Section 33 clarifies a range of matters relating to the role of the Director General as Editor-in-Chief for their provider, following on from the principles set out in the European Media Freedom Act. Under this section, a Director General will be vested with the editorial functions of a provider in terms of its determining of the provider's overall editorial policies, their standards and priorities. In this context, it is important to note that both RTE and TGCAR will continue to be accountable to Commissioner Mahon as Regulator for their apprehension to their duties and to any media services code made by Commissioner Mahon. This provision aims to balance editorial dependence with accountability to an independent regulator. Section 33 of the Bill also gives effect to Article 5 of the European Media Freedom Act by setting out in detail the requirements for an open and transparent process for the appointment and, in certain specified circumstances, removal of a Director General. The Government will no longer have a role in consenting to the appointment of a Director General. However, the approval of the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport and the Minister for Public Expenditure, NPD, Delivery and Reform will still be required to determine the remuneration, terms and conditions of employment of the DG. Given the seriousness of decisions to dismiss a DG, the section provides that a Board must provide the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport with a statement of the decision and reasons for it, which must be laid before the Oireachtas. In line with the recommendations of the Expert Advisory Committee on Governance and Culture in RTE, Sections 25 to 31 of the Bill clarify and expand provisions relating to the functions, duties, role and necessary expertise of the Boards and the Board Committees of RTE and TGCAR. In particular, Sections 25 and 30 clearly set out separate categories of the functions of the Board on one hand and the duties of the Board members on the other. The duties in Section 30 now include duties equivalent to those of a Company Director under the Companies Act of 2014, an additional duty to represent the interests of the people of the island of Ireland and of Irish communities outside the island of Ireland and on duty of confidentiality. Section 44 of the Bill provides for the enhanced mechanisms for assessing the performance and appropriate funding of RTE and TGCAR, which is based on the recommendations of the future of the Media Commission and requires the European Media Freedom Act. Under the framework, Commissioner Mann will assess and appraise the funding needs of and determine detailed performance targets for RTE and TGCAR every three years. The first of these three yearly appraisals will be submitted to the Minister for onward submission to the Government by 30 June 2027 and cover the period 2028 to 2030. This replaces the current approach under which Commissioner Mann appraises funding needs every five years and the public service media providers set out their own performance commitments. Section 44 of the Bill provides that the three-year appraisal will be underpinned by a detailed methodology which will be published by Commissioner Mann following a public consultation. This methodology is intended to provide clear guidance to RTE and TGCAR in making submissions to Commissioner Mann as part of the three yearly appraisal. The three-year first methodology will be published by the end of January 2027. Section 4 also strengthens the yearly review process undertaken by Commissioner Mann which will now be required to carry out two annual reviews. The first due on the 30th of June of each year will focus on the degree to which RTE and TGCAR met their performance targets and received adequate funding for the previous year in line with the European Media Freedom Act. The second due on the 31st of October of each year which will examine compliance with various state aid requirements such as the separate accounting of public service and commercial revenues and expenditure. In terms of enhanced transparency the Bill provides for additional reporting obligations on RTE and TGCAR in respect of their employee and contractor remuneration and commissioning activities. Section 43 of the Bill requires RTE and TGCAR to disclose information on the remuneration of staff and relevant contractors in monetary barons which shall be determined by the Minister. As Minister O'Donovan has said this is an area he will consider further and if necessary bring forward proposals to strengthen obligations on transparency and reporting obligations in this area which will require engagement with the Data Protection Commission. Section 43 provides that RTE must disclose additional information in their annual report for the Commission of Independent Productions. This will include the total cost of each production in monetary barons which shall be determined by the Minister and the public contribution to the cost of the production as a percentage of the total cost of production. Section 48 of the Bill will require TGCAR to provide this information on an annual basis for the first time. Given the large sums of public monies expended in this area this transparency is both appropriate and necessary. Section 36 to 39 of the Bill will strengthen the role and independence of the audience councils of RTE and TGCAR following on from the recommendations of the future of the Media Commission. The audience councils were introduced to the Broadcasting Act of 2009 and are intended to represent the views of the people of the island of Ireland to the boards of RTE and TGCAR. The Bill will expand the role of the audience councils by providing for the statutory independence of the audience councils for RTE and TGCAR, secondly requiring the selection of a diverse members of both councils by Commission of Mon following an open and transparent public competition. Thirdly providing an audience council may in addition be the required annual report and prepare a special report and finally requiring RTE and TGCAR to respond to both annual and special reports prepared by their audience councils. Section 15 to 19 and section 21 to 23 of the Bill provide for the extension of the duties and codes which currently apply to broadcast and video on-demand content to all public service content made available by RTE and TGCAR such as broadcasts and written material. As public service media providers established in law RTE and TGCAR have a particular duty to their audiences. This will bring all of RTE and TGCAR's public service content under the regulation of Commission of Mon and enable audiences to make complaints to Commission of Mon regarding such content. Sections 4, 5 and 54 of the Bill provide for the new framework to support public service content. Section 4 provides for a definition of public service content as any audio visual or sound program, anything published in the press publication and types of online content which informs, educates or entertains and which relates to an exhaustive list of categories which are of the interest to the Irish audiences. A key principle of the public service content is that it can only be made available by public service content providers as defined in section 3 of the Bill. Public service content providers may be either regulated entities such as a broadcast regulated by Commission of Mon or an entity subject to a recognised self-regulatory regime such as a newspaper regulated by the Press Council. This is intended to ensure that any funded content is subject to regulation with a clear avenue for the public to make complaints. Section 4 also provides for a definition of underserved audience which refers to audience who may feel underserved by virtue of the particular characteristics such as age, disability or geography. Section 54 provides for the three main elements of the new framework. First, Commission of Mon will be required to carry out three yearly reviews of public service content provision, to assess gaps in public service content provision in the English and Irish languages and to recommend measures to address these gaps. The reviews must have particular regard to the needs of the underserved audiences. The first of these will be submitted to the Minister by the 30th of June 2027 and cover the period of 2028 to 2030. Second, the Broadcasting Fund will be converted into a fund known as Kishneman which will continue to be funded on an annual basis by 7% of the net TV licence fee receipts and an exchequer allocation. Third, out of the resources paid into Kishneman, Commission of Mon will prepare and operate public service content funding schemes to support the production of new public service content, measures to develop the capacity of public service content providers and measures to support the archiving of public service content. Over time, it is expected that the existing media funding schemes such as the Sound and Vision scheme and the Courts and Local Democracy Reporting schemes will be converted to schemes made under the Act. Under existing legislation, RTE is required to provide an inflation adjustment fixed amount of funding for independent programming. In line with the recommendation of the Future of Media Commission, sections 45 and 46 of the Bill will require RTE to allocate a minimum of 25% of its public funding to commission audiovisual and audio programming from the production independent sector. The 25% target will no longer be confined to broadcast material but will also cover podcasts, audiovisual programming to be made available on demand players. The terms of regulatory powers, the Commission of Mon already have extensive powers to require information from a provider following the opening of a formal investigation. Outside of the investigations and as part of the supervisory function, it also has the power to require, by notice in writing, a regulated provider to provide commissioned amount with information relating to compliance with online safety code. Sections 20 and 60 of the Bill will extend this information gathering power to require regulated entities to provide information relating to compliance with other elements of online safety framework and with media service codes and rules. As a government, we are committed to ensuring the Commission of Mon has all the appropriate powers to carry out their functions in relation to online safety. The Broadcasting Act 2009 currently provides Commission of Mon with the authority to impose a levy on audiovisual broadcasters such as RTE and VMTV and video on-demand providers such as Netflix or the RTE player. The proceeds of what is often called the Netflix levy may be used by Commission of Mon or Fíos Éireann to fund new audiovisual programming. Minister O'Donovan has set out his view that it is appropriate that any charge that may increase the prices that Irish consumers pay should be subject to democratic oversight. For that reason, section 56 of the Bill provides that a levy may only be imposed by Commission of Mon pursuant to a ministerial direction. Minister O'Donovan has been very clear that he does not intend to give such direction at this time. To ensure that this position can be considered in light of up-to-date information and analysis, section 58 of the Bill provides for the extra-ante and ex-post assessments of the impact of the levy to be undertaken by Commission of Mon every three years. The first report will be due three years following the commencement of the relevant section or earlier if directed by the Minister. I am conscious that the past three years have felt like Groundhog Day, a phrase used by Minister O'Donovan and the Tánaiste. In all of this, we must not lose sight of the essential role that RTE and TG Car as public service media providers play in our social, cultural and democratic life of this country. They provide programming that informs, educates and entertains, and ensures that the public have and knows if they have trustworthy and reliable information. However, to be truly effective, our public service media providers must be trusted. To be trusted, they must be open, transparent and demonstrate the very highest standards in corporate governance. This must be underpinned by robust legislation, and that is why this Bill aims to fundamentally reform the governance and regulation of RTE and TG Car. I look forward to working with all Members in the Houses as we progress this Bill.