Donohoe defends future of television licence fee

The television licence fee “has to be a feature” of RTÉ’s long-term funding, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe has said.

The Minister said that, despite a €16 million collapse in TV licence collections this year following a series of financial scandals, the €160 fee would remain.

Mr Donohoe, speaking on RTÉ Radio’s This Week programme on Sunday, said his “focus” when discussing the future of RTÉ was the €56 million bailout for the beleaguered broadcaster.

He said this would be based on two “elements” – the cost-cutting and rationalisation plan presented by director general Kevin Bakhurst last week, and its successful implementation. The plan includes cutting staff numbers by 20 per cent and a pay cap across the organisation to ensure no one earns more than the €250,000 paid to the director general.

“My judgment, and that of the Government, is that the plan itself is clearly going in the right direction, in recognising some of the changes we need to make,” said the minister.

Assurances on the implementation of the changes would be a precondition for the release of €40 million to RTÉ for next year.

On the planned cuts to top-earners’ salaries, he said: “The direction is very, very clear as laid out for RTÉ, regarding where they want to get their wage structures and it’s really up now to senior managers and journalists to get to that point.”

Outlining the criteria that would guide him in coming to a decision next year on RTÉ's long-term funding, Mr Donohoe said : “The first criteria is I do not believe any Government should be involved in allocating and determining how much money a State broadcaster should get. The independence of the revenue to the State broadcaster from ministers such as myself is an essential element of public service broadcasting.”

His second was that whatever method was adopted to collect the licence fee should achieve a payment “compliance rate that is at least in line if not in advance of where we are at the moment”. Latest reports indicate collection revenues have fallen by €16 million since July, when a series of financial scandals at RTÉ began to emerge.

Appearing to reject suggestions that the broadcaster should be fully exchequer-funded, he said despite the fall in licence fee compliance: “There is still a very large amount of revenue coming in from the television licence at the moment. We should not be walking away from that. That has to be a feature of how we continue to collect revenue in the future.”

Asked whether the Revenue Commissioners should be tasked with taking over collection of the licence fee – currently collected by An Post – he said it was “one of the options” to be considered.

It had been rejected in the past, he noted, on the ground that the Revenue Commissioners’ remit, to collect taxes, was underpinned by a raft of legislation. The licence fee, in contrast, was a charge.

“We should just tread really carefully before we expand their remit into other areas of collection,” he said. “It will be a matter for the Minister for Finance, Michael McGrath, in consultation with Government and party leaders. The matter is going to be considered but there are pros and cons in relation to it ... Every option will have pluses and minuses.”