Fee increase defended in Dail rows

The Government was accused of undermining RTE, damaging public-sector broadcasting and handing over the airwaves to the "Rupert Murdochs of this world".

In a row during the Order of Business about the RTE television licence fee increase and digital broadcasting, the Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, asked if it was "indolence, incompetence or vindictiveness" against RTE that was motivating the Government.

The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said there were 100,000 subscribers to Sky Digital TV but the Minister for Arts would not deal with digitalisation until 2003 "by which time Rupert Murdoch will own the Irish airwaves, and the control of much of the media coming through our screens will be determined by editors outside the jurisdiction with no cultural linkage to what is going on here".

However, during Arts questions, the Minister, Ms de Valera, defended the £14.50 fee increase. She said much of the £50 increase sought by RTE would have been spent on improving the level of output and quality of indigenous programming but the supporting argument for this "was found to be less than convincing".

It was Government policy to support public broadcasting, but there had to be confidence that public money would be "efficiently spent on improving the quality of services rather than maintaining existing cost bases".

Government, she said, "has to be assured that RTE has prepared itself both in its organisation and thinking for the new broadcasting era". Independent evaluation of RTE's proposals for digital television showed "no strategic approach" available from the broadcaster.

But the Fine Gael spokesman, Mr Dinny McGinley, accused her of using a consultants' report as a "fig leaf of respectability to conceal her own decision to starve RTE into silence". The Labour spokesman, Mr Brian O'Shea, said her policy meant RTE "will never be able to get into the area of digital terrestrial television in an effective way".

During the Order of Business, the acting leader of the Dail, the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, defended the increase. He said the Opposition should name the amount they believed the fee should increase by. The previous government increased the fee by £8. Mr Michael D. Higgins argued that "the fee was increased and it was index-linked."

He claimed the current Government was afraid to rescind the decision to index-link the fee, so "refused to implement it".

Dr Woods said he accepted that the previous government decided it would be index-linked. However, "it does not take from the fact that if it was index-linked one would be talking about small indices".

Mr Noonan said the refusal to grant an adequate fee increase had caused consternation among staff in RTE.

He understood the consultants hired to assess the RTE application for a fee increase, PricewaterhouseCooper, consulted only the accountancy and financial side, and none of the key programme-makers in news or current affairs.

Dr Woods agreed the report would be placed in the Oireachtas library.