Barry Ward: Defending RTÉ and boosting Irish-language media

Can I start by saying something which is in fact relatively controversial. I don't think RTE does a bad job. I think they do quite a good job in fact as a public service broadcaster and the difficulty they face is they're so often compared with international comparators like the BBC, which in itself is not perfect, but enjoys funding vastly beyond what RTE could ever expect to have in a small jurisdiction like Ireland. But I think on the whole they do a good job and they do a good job in terms of the public service broadcasting space and I agree with what Deputy O'Donoghue said about how public service broadcasting should never be the voice of the government. I don't think it is by the way. I think they're more critical of the government and then perhaps the government would be happy with, but I think it shouldn't be the voice of any particular sector and what I would like to see in the context of public service broadcasting is much more reporting and less commentary because far too often opinions are reported or colour what is broadcast. But as I say I think RTE does a good job. They provide us with good news coverage, with good current affairs coverage and with a good overall spread in terms of the broadcasting they provide. That said, Minister, I welcome this bill. I think it's an important bill that amends the Broadcasting Act and implements many of the new EU media rules under the European Media Freedom Act and that's important obviously as well, but recognising the elements of the independent review of the governance and culture of RTE and the 2022 Future of Media Commission report I think it's also important that this legislation is brought forward and I want to acknowledge Sean O'Donnelly who's in the public gallery who's interning with me at the moment who's done a lot of work analysing what this bill does and where it succeeds and as I say the changing of governance is one of the things that I think is really important. I think in light of what happened recently in RTE there's an extent to which we've gotten carried away examining individuals' pay and not looking at the governance issue so I specifically welcome the elements in this bill that will change the governance of RTE and public service broadcasting and the safeguards for editorial independence which will come through the official governing body. I think the Director General, as Editor-in-Chief, that election by public, elected by a public company every five or seven years is a good thing and I think we cannot separate out RTE or maybe we need to separate out RTE as being different from other media organisations because it doesn't receive so much public funding. I also recognise the changes in relation to the transparency for the commissioners within Commissioner Mian and the auditing of RTE's accounts by the Comptroller-General. I think the difficulty of RTE has less been the manner in which money has been spent and the criticism of that is all valid but it's the changes and the appearance that perhaps what has been said can't be relied upon. That is a problem from the point of view of public confidence and transparency is a hugely important part of that public confidence in public broadcasting and the public service media as well. So the notion for example that the Director General will be available to give evidence before committees is also hugely important and there shouldn't be any resistance to that. They should be available to answer questions when they're called upon to do so and reviews every three years and smaller reviews yearly of the corporation's funding and performance are also important to inform and reinstate that performance. Obviously hand-in-hand with that is a disclosure of employee pay but as I say I think this is less about individuals than it is about the organisation itself. One of the things I think is very welcome in this legislation is scope for greater focus on the Irish language. I think one of the things we have seen in recent years emerging not from this legislation but for the Official Languages Act in relation to advertising and the fact that state agencies have to spend 20% of their advertising in advertising or fóilc ríoch traoibh an na Gaeilge, that's hugely important and actually whether we realise it or not we do notice it because now you have a situation where if you're listening to media or watching media you will now see advertising completely through Irish and that's something we didn't really have before. Yes you might get an ad that's targeted at the Irish-speaking community or you might get an ad that's targeted at an Irish-speaking product but now it's wholesale so irrespective of what it is, what government program it is or what a particular government agency is doing you will now hear that advertising to an attitude of at least 20% fóilc ríoch traoibh an na Gaeilge. That's a hugely important thing because it normalises the existence of Irish within the media generally but obviously within public service media as well and the make-up of the audience councils is really important in terms of including at least 10 Irish-speaking members and at least five who have Gaeilteacht experience. That is progress and we should actually be moving I think to increasing that 20% because I think it makes a big difference in terms of what we hear in media but here's where it also makes a difference. Now you have a situation where there is a funding stream for those involved in Irish-language media production so people who are particularly Cainthar dhúchas, Irish speakers who could do that advertising, companies that are capable of doing production through Irish, now they have a guaranteed stream that comes into them and that's really important because it funds those companies in the longer term. It makes their existence viable where perhaps previously it wouldn't have been notwithstanding the presence of TG4 and its predecessors The fact and indeed Radio na Gaeilteachta which doesn't really do, it doesn't have the same extent of advertising in real terms and when you is it is something I think there's a burden on presenters on Radio na Gaeilteachta that if you're presenting on most mainstream media programs there is a break, an ad break where you get to put yourself together for the next segment. If you're presenting a program on RT Radio na Gaeilteachta you don't have that chance it just goes from one segment into the next and it's the professionalism then I think is also worth noting. But the point that I make about the importance of driving Irish language material in terms of the presence of, or Deangha D'Uchaise, is really important but also the point about how it drives production and capacity within the Irish Language Production Centre is also really important and that extends beyond the language to Irish producers in general. One of my real bugbears is the notion that you turn on RT radio or RT television or any Irish indigenous radio or television station and there's an ad being run on that station that is absolutely 100% and exclusively produced for the English market. English accents, English parlance, English slang, English personalities, produced in London by people who have no concept of what it is the Irish market needs. When that ad is run on Irish media it frustrates me because I think it it's a signal that that company that's running the ad really sees them also as being part of the English or the British market. That's one thing but worse than that it means that the Irish voiceover artists based in Dublin, the people who do the copy who might be based in Dublin, the people who put together the filming of those things in Dublin, the jobs that are based here in Dublin providing media solutions for Irish companies, Irish people and Irish media consumers, they're being overlooked. So if you have a big multinational and I won't name any companies but there's lots of them and they make their ad in London and then they run it in Irish media, what they are saying is not only do they think we're an extension of the British market but they're also saying they don't care to give work to Irish media companies based here in Dublin and elsewhere around the country. That's a real shame and I must say I think there is an obvious responsibility for the company itself to indicate that they have enough respect to produce an ad that's dedicated for this jurisdiction. But I also think there's a role for the media companies, the radio stations, the television stations to say to those companies who come to advertise with them, lads you know that ad is not made for this jurisdiction. Now I've raised this with companies and of course the response is understandably we don't turn away business and you know the payment for those ads obviously funds the activities of that radio station, television station, I get that. But I don't get the sense that at any point when an ad comes in that somebody in RTE or indeed any other media outlet in the country who's saying we think you should actually amend that ad or change that ad or remake that ad in Ireland using Irish staff and Irish teams and Irish companies because actually it'll land better with the people here. The problem for us is because we also consume so much international media particularly British media sometimes we don't notice because if you're watching British television and then you switch to an Irish channel you might not notice that the ad is exactly the same as the one that you saw on the British channel. I just think there's a real shame within the media landscape that we can't strike out better for Irish media companies to ensure that the content that we see, that we hear, that we have to listen to is actually indigenous content generated here for us, by us and I don't mean that to sound in any way isolationist, I don't because the reality is we live in a global environment and I don't have a problem with that but I do have a problem with the notion that we're the extension of another media market and I think there's something that is being missed by media outlets here but also by the companies who are advertising and I don't know if they're even aware of how much that can sometimes turn off an Irish consumer that the product or the ad, the product that's being advertised is actually being geared for and aimed at a different type of consumer entirely. So I think that's something I don't know to what extent it can be addressed within this legislation but in the same way the Official Languages Act prescribed the 20% allocation for a Fóil Ghaeilge, is there room perhaps for a portion or a requirement for a portion of advertising on any station to be made for example in this jurisdiction and that may interfere with competition rules within the European Union but maybe even just if we said that it had to be done within the European Union then that would specifically include the other major English language jurisdiction in this part of the world. I started by saying that I think that RTE does a good job, I stand by that, I do think sometimes our news can be a small bit parochial and I want to give a shout out to a program that I think is genuinely excellent, unfortunately it only occupies a 20 minute slot on a Sunday morning on RTE Radio 1 and it's World Report. World Report is a program that goes around the world and uses reporters on the ground in places that we don't hear very much from very often and it gives them an opportunity to set out a story that's happening in Kenya or India or Bolivia or somewhere like that that doesn't make the mainstream news and by the way that includes print media and it's sometimes hard for us particularly in an English language jurisdiction where there is so much international media coming into our country through English it's sometimes very difficult for consumers here to hear through that noise and to see things that don't make it make their way into the headlines that come up in your newspaper or your notifications for your various media apps or what you're looking at online and algorithms can sometimes kill your ability to see beyond what a particular platform thinks you should be reading. World Report does cut through that and I really don't know why we couldn't do a World Report every day and there is a like when I think of RT Radio before Morning Ireland starts at 7 a.m. for example there is space there even to do one story or two stories there is room there I think it's an excellent program because I also think it lifts aside of the parochial nature that's sometimes associated with with news in this jurisdiction and I'd love to see I'd love to see that happening but if I can say this in conclusion this bill I suppose which is primarily concerned with governance and transparency is a good piece of legislation and I welcome it but there is so much more we can do in terms of improving our national media landscape to ensure that it serves the people in this country but also serves them with a diet of information and media material that they will not get outside this country so let's do better for them in that regard.