The television licence is in big trouble, and it has had its day. Sales, as the Tánaiste knows, have collapsed. New figures show that fewer than 300,000 licences have been sold so far this year. When we consider that nearly 1 million licences were sold in 2022, we can see the scale of the problem. One-in-three households liable to pay has simply stopped paying the television licence. It is a staggering drop in the past four years, and the public are sick to their teeth of the raft of financial scandals at RTÉ, the constant waste of public money and that culture of entitlement that does not seem to have gone away. People are voting with their feet. That is the reality. Sales are plummeting every year, and it presents a real problem for the funding of public media. It also presents the Government with a decision. It has to choose whether to chase hundreds of thousands of people through the courts for not paying their television licence or it can move to a modern, sustainable funding model though the Exchequer. It is time to face reality. The TV licence has to be scrapped. Will the Government scrap the television licence or is its intention to just pursue 300,000 or 400,000 through the courts?

Sentiment score: -0.19

What is the Tánaiste going to do about it? Will he answer the question?

Sentiment score: 0.00