Why I stopped paying my TV licence fee: ‘The whole model is broken’

Earlier this year, Declan Moynihan, from Drumcondra, began withholding payment of his licence fee.

It’s a form of protest, he says, against a “broken” funding model for the public service broadcaster. Mr Moynihan thinks that the flat €160 fee should be scrapped – perhaps in favour of a public broadcasting tax, as implemented in other European countries such as Finland.

“Right now, I’m happy to withhold it, on the basis that it might help – along with other people withholding – to focus the Government’s attention on what we need to do.”

Last summer’s pay controversies at RTÉ, including revelations that former Late Late Show presenter Ryan Tubridy had received hidden payments from his employer, are “peripheral” to the more pressing issue of funding reform, Mr Moynihan says. “The whole model is broken.”

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He is well aware that his protest might land him an appearance at the local District Court. “At some stage I’m going to get a summons that says: ‘Well, you need to pay the fee’.

“And at that point I’m going to have to make a decision: Do I pay it – because at the end of the day, I’m a law-abiding citizen, and if somebody says I have to pay it, I have to pay it.

“Or do I stand up in a court and say: ‘Well judge, I’ll put it in the poor box, but I’m not paying until this is all sorted.’”

He says that if the funding system is reformed, he’d be happy to pay what he owes.

Mr Moynihan is not the only one withholding payment of his TV licence, for a variety of reasons. The number of TV licences purchased last year fell by 13 per cent, a drop of more than 123,000 licences compared to the previous year, according to figures from the Department of Media.

Some feel justified in withholding payment because of the spiralling scandal at RTÉ, which has been unfolding since last summer.

“When you’re forced to pay the TV licence, and there’s no oversight on the body that you’re funding, that was very frustrating. I decided I wouldn’t pay it,” one man told The Irish Times this week, asking not to be named.

The man, a 48-year-old living in Castleknock, didn’t pay for his licence for a number of months last year, but has since restarted payments. He says that the licence fee is in urgent need of reform.

“I think it’s totally archaic, making people pay that and then dragging them to court when they don’t pay it,” he says.

Kate (28), living in Killiney, is still withholding payment of her licence fee, in part due to the payments scandal, and also because she doesn’t feel she should pay for a service she doesn’t use. “I don’t watch RTÉ, I don’t watch any public television,” she says.

However, Kate, who did not want to use her full name, does think that having a publicly funded broadcaster is important. “I used to live in the States, and I saw the impact of having private news organisation that subsequently don’t become news organisations at all – they’re just conduits for individual journalists’ opinions and political agendas,” she explains.

The licence fee needs reform, and Sinn Féin’s proposal of an amnesty for those who have not paid interests her – although she’s not sure exactly what the solution is.

Another woman who spoke to The Irish Times this week still pays her licence fee – resentfully, she says. “It infuriates me. But yet, because it’s the law, I do pay.”

There’s no comparison between what BBC viewers get from their licence fee and RTÉ's output, the woman, a 46-year-old from Dundalk, says. “You’re paying your licence fee and yet you’re still bombarded with ads for yoghurt. It’s just so tacky.

“The Government should just bite the bullet just say right, we’re going to pay for it out of tax and that’s that,” she adds.

[ Latest RTÉ turmoil raises questions for director general Kevin Bakhurst ]

Derek, a 66-year-old living in Templeogue, expressed disillusionment at the latest revelations coming out of Montrose this week – namely that Breda O’Keeffe, the former chief financial officer at RTÉ, received €450,000 as part of a voluntary redundancy deal in 2020.

Derek is withholding payment at the moment until the organisation shows that it has cleaned up its act. “And that we see that when we do give money in, then in actual fact it’s going where it should be.”

The revelations at RTÉ in recent times are reminiscent of Celtic Tiger-era excess, according to a 24-year-old man from Letterkenny, Co Donegal, who spoke to The Irish Times this week.

He stopped paying his licence fee following last summer’s fallout.

He says he wouldn’t be for or against an amnesty for people who refused to pay. “I’d probably be quite open to it. But I’d just be part of the cohort of people ... I don’t use it, so why would I pay for it?

“Most of my watching would either be on Netflix or Amazon Prime, or even YouTube,” he adds.

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