Windmill Lane Studios has had its 10-year-old contract to televise the proceedings of the Houses of the Oireachtas renewed. It beat five other companies, including RTE, in the tendering process, but financial details have been withheld under the "commercially sensitive" rule.
The decision was taken last week by the Oireachtas Broadcasting Committee, which is staffed by the Leinster House whips and comprises Seamus Brennan, chairman, and Donie Cassidy of FF, FG's Charlie Flanagan and Maurice Manning, Labour's Emmet Stagg and PD's Des O'Malley and John Dardis. The advice of consultant, Scotsman David McGregor, was central to the decision. The new five-year contract involves increased coverage, in that as well as the Dail and Seanad, four committees, instead of two, will be broadcast live. The four new wired committee rooms being built in the new block, LH 2000, due to open for the October 3rd return of the Dail, makes this possible.
The system works by way of the Houses of the Oireachtas buying the design, installation and operation of a service to televise the proceedings and then feeding it out, continually and live, throughout Leinster House, and at a charge to outside operators such as RTE which decide what they will broadcast. The operation doesn't make money for the Oireachtas, but breaks even and is regarded as a public service.
The most visible enactment of Windmill's contract, RTE's Oireachtas Report, has not been unconscientious over the last 10 years. Complaining in the past about the often early-morning broadcast time, Flanagan and Labour's Pat Rabbitte said it had an audience composed solely of drunks and insomniacs. As well as that unsavoury tag, there has been much criticism of the camera restrictions which originally required the focus to be entirely on the speaker, ignoring reactions and interjections and rejecting close-ups and wide-panning shots. There has been some relaxation of the rules in recent years, but the doughnutting syndrome (i.e. where party hacks surround the speaker for the benefit of the camera) continues and the best bits - the heckles - are still off limits.
Original worries, that members might create rows to get attention and that empty benches are bad PR, remain. But with the new digital system and plans for a national channel devoted solely to live parliamentary coverage, they'll have to put up with it.