Discussions on the future funding of RTÉ will begin in September amid concerns about the station’s finances following the controversies over misreported payments to star broadcaster Ryan Tubridy.
Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said the “first step” in dealing with requests for funding for RTÉ as part of Budget 2024 will be dealing with outstanding recommendations from the Future of Media Commission. The commission recommended the abolition of the licence fee from 2024 to be replaced by exchequer funding or more specifically an “explicit taxation approach”.
It emerged this week that RTÉ has suffered another steep decline in its licence fee income, with over 5,000 fewer people paying this week than in the same period last year – equating to a drop of almost another €1 million.
“With regard to RTÉ I would expect that any discussions in relation to the funding of RTÉ will form part of the discussions that I will have with Minister Catherine Martin. Those discussions have not taken place in a detailed way. I anticipate they will start in early September.
“We do have some outstanding recommendations from the Future of Media Commission in relation to the funding of RTÉ. And I imagine that will be our first step in dealing with the consequences of the recent controversies in RTÉ.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that any additional funding provided to RTÉ this year will have conditions attached.
Mr Varadkar said he could see no other way of providing the extra money to the broadcaster.
“Ultimately, if we’re put in the position where we have to provide more funding to RTÉ, I think taxpayers would expect conditionality to be attached to that.
“There have been periods when governments provided additional financing to banks or to sporting bodies… On all occasions, there were terms and conditions and expectations attached,” he said.
Responding to the dramatic reduction in licence fee income in recent week when compared to 2022, he said: “I would certainly encourage people to continue to pay their licence fee, notwithstanding the recent controversy.
“The licence pays for news, for arts broadcasting, sports, children’s programmes, and Irish language broadcasting. These are things that are of real value, and I would encourage people to continue to pay their licence fee.”
Mr Varadkar said he was of the view that the new director general, Kevin Bakhurst, had “got off to a new start”.
“He does understand the situation and I think he’s doing his best to put it right. And I think it’s also important to restate that whatever mistakes and irregularities occurred in RTE, it had nothing to do with the vast majority of the staff.
Responding to the proposal by People Before Profit to remove RTÉ's power to collect advertising, and for €1 billion funding to be allotted to public service broadcasting, he said: “People Before Profit is proposing €1 billion of taxpayers’ money to be given to the media. I’m not sure if the public would support that quite frankly. If we had an extra billion euros of taxpayers money, giving it all to the media wouldn’t be my highest priority to be very honest.”
Rental tax credit
In relation to Budget 2024, Mr Donohoe said that Minister for Finance Michael McGrath is open to considering changes to the rental tax credit, after Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien said he was pushing for the credit to be increased to nearly €800.
“The Minister for Finance has already recognised the needs that the rental sector has, and has indicated that this is an area that he will consider. We are some time away from making a decision on it. The budget will have to deal with many different needs but one of them of course will be how we can help with the rising cost of living without adding to the inflationary pressures that are already there.”
Mr Donohoe promised that the budget will be “big” and will help households with the cost of living.
“We can help with the many pressures that are building on the cost of living. We really appreciate that for many at the moment, the rising interest rates and inflation continuing to go up places so much pressure on so many and we have looked to help and to respond back to the rising cost of living with a variety of different measures both in last year’s budget and since then.
“The Minister and the Government and the party leaders have not made any decisions yet in relation to individual specific matters in the budget and they won’t make those decisions until early October.”
“The Government will consider what cost of living measures are needed as part of Budget 2024 but we will have to make a decision on the design of those matters in September and October. Myself and Minister McGrath said before the summer that we have not made decisions in relation to what those measures will be yet but we will do so in consultation with the party leaders in September.”
He also said that abolishing the Universal Social Charge was not a realistic prospect.
“Decisions in relation to the Universal Social Charge are ones for the Minister for Finance, but with a billion euro overall in summer economic statements for tax related measures, Minister McGrath should be in a position to take measures and make decisions that will have an impact on the cost of living. But I’ve said many times since 2016 that the Universal Social Charge now funds so many of the public services that our society depends on, and its abolition is not a realistic objective.”
Asked about the prospect of a supercharged banking levy which could boost budget coffers, Mr Donohoe would not be drawn.
“We already have a levy in place in our banking sector and that has been in place now since the global financial crisis,” he said.
