Unions cite licence fee rise as key to RTE

Serious and permanent damage will be done to RT╔ unless the Government agrees quickly to a significant licence fee increase, the semi-state company's unions have warned.

The six-strong group of unions painted a bleak picture of the company's fortunes when it appeared on Tuesday before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Heritage and the Irish Language. The union representatives said they had believed the Government would give a sizeable licence fee increase in 1999 after workers accepted 330 redundancies and major work practice changes.

"We expected a reasonable increase. We did not expect to get it all at once or all that we wanted. We are not stupid, nor naive," said SIPTU official Mr Jimmy Jordan.

So far, the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, has refused to increase the £14.50 (€18.41) rise granted earlier this year until the company gets its financial act together. However, the unions argued that the licence fee should be increased significantly and then linked to inflation to stop it falling behind.

They argued that An Post should lose the contract for collecting the licence fee. "We have one of the highest collection fees in Europe yet there remain an estimated 240,000 households which possess a television but do not have a licence," they alleged.