Joint committee backs €43 rise in RTE licence fee

A Cabinet decision on RTÉ's application for a €43 rise in the TV licence fee is expected as early as next week, after an Oireachtas committee gave its general support to an increase yesterday.

The all-party Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources agreed "with the principle" of a higher fee, following a hearing in which it was told by management and unions that the State broadcaster could not function adequately without it.

The TDs and senators also heard that management plans to shed at least 150 more jobs at the station in the first half of 2003, on top of the 480 staff already gone or going by the end of this year.

In a statement issued after the meeting, the committee linked its support for a higher fee with independent monitoring to ensure value for money. In such a context, the statement said, the committee supported the principle of an increase "as a first step towards the continued existence of public service broadcasting".

Union representatives told the hearing they backed the €43 application, but did not share management's views on the need for further job losses.

The acting secretary of the group of unions, Mr Donal Ó Braonáin, said it was believed that a further 190 jobs had been targeted to go by the end of next June, although management's figure was 150. The future of RTÉ staff was as threatened as that of "Irish fishermen", he added.

An RTÉ spokeswoman later clarified the redundancy plans, saying the number required had been revised from 190 down to 150. Half of the job losses would be in television, with the remainder divided between radio and "publishing" - the division which includes Aertel, the website and the RTÉ Guide.

Questioned by Mr Tommy Broughan TD (Labour), the station's director general, Mr Bob Collins, rejected "rumours" that the job cuts already implemented had resulted in the large-scale use of former staff as consultants and contract employees. Mr Collins said of the 480 people whose positions had gone, 18 now had what he would call "substantial" working relationships with RTÉ.

In response to committee chairman Mr Noel O'Flynn (FF), Mr Collins said RTÉ would have "no difficulty" with having its financial performance externally monitored.

Justifying a €43 increase, combined with an inflation-proof link to the consumer price index, Mr Collins said that currently, public funding of broadcasting in Ireland was in almost inverse proportion to the the rest of the EU. The European average was 71 per cent public compared with 29 per cent commercial; here the figures were 37 and 63 per cent, respectively.

The Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Mr Seamus Dooley, said if RTÉ was really committed to regional broadcasting, it could not "suck the marrow from the bone".

He also described as typical of the station's management the fact that its representatives left yesterday's hearing without waiting to hear the unions' presentation.