Sinéad Gibney

Overall sentiment: 0.01
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I just have a few short points to make, so I will not use my full time, just for the benefit of other speakers. I thank the Minister of State for being here in the absence of the media Minister. I welcome the progress of this Bill and I look forward to getting stuck into it on Committee Stage at the media committee. We are at a crucial juncture as to where broadcasting is and where streaming is, all the disruption we have experienced as a society from the Internet, essentially, and the companies that dominate that world, what that has meant for revenues for traditional broadcasters, legacy media generally, and what it means now for how we govern that space. I recognise that this is on the back of not only the Future of Media Commission but also the more recent governance report. Of course, it is also on the back of the governance and financial scandal, if you like, recently experienced by RTÉ and by this disruption I refer to. I welcome the move to bring RTÉ under the remit of the C and AG. I have been an Accounting Officer under the remit of the C and AG. It is a rigorous body that I believe will assist us in bringing to where it needs to be the transparency and oversight of RTÉ as our national and State broadcaster. I want to pick up on a couple of other specifics within this. Screen Producers Ireland has been in touch about the 25% funding minimum. Essentially, one of the issues it raises is that, within the legislation, we do not yet see a commencement date for that minimum. We need to look at that. This is a pivotal and fundamental measure for the commercial sector, which carries that public service broadcasting mandate through the commissioning process, and it is crucial that the sector be provided with as much information as possible as far in advance as possible in order that it can do the appropriate planning that it needs to respond to the call for public service broadcasting from our national broadcaster. That is very important. I want to touch on the Irish language scope of this, as many others have. I have talked a lot with Irish language media providers recently, primarily on the campaign trail in the Galway West by-election, and it was an eye-opener to understand how difficult it had been for producers and professionals working in that space who were looking at dual or two-tier pay systems, essentially, often for twice the work. There is a feeling in some areas that professionals are paid less and asked to do more to meet not only the public service obligations in the Irish language sector, but also the ambition we have as a State to foster and promote our indigenous language. It is a shame that the Minister has chosen not to place the levy entirely under the remit of Coimisiún na Meán. This is exactly what I am saying about disruption. We are seeing a disproportionate amount of the cost of disruption borne by legacy media rather than by the streamers and new platforms. That is where it needs to go to. I get the concerns about passing the cost on to the consumer but we are an outlier now. In other European countries, the streaming levy is available to fund independent and creative sectors. They could product Irish media content. That is something I will be pushing hard on on Committee Stage. I have no doubt others in the Opposition will too. Overall, I welcome the Bill and look forward to working on it further on Committee Stage.

Sentiment score: 0.01