TV licence rules must be addressed, says Rabbitte

BROADCASTING CHARGE:INEQUALITIES IN TV licence charges between large hotels and holiday caravans will have to be ironed out in the proposed broadcasting charge, Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte has said. He told the Dáil he did not believe there would be any decision on the new charge this year, particularly because of the need to successfully manage the transition from analogue to digital television.

But highlighting the distinction between domestic and business viewers, he said there were “many anomalies in the existing system”. One of those he said was the fact that “only one television licence is needed for a 500-bed hotel but if you have three cottages occupied for two months a year on the west coast – or a caravan if that is one’s choice, you must have a television licence for each of them”.

Issues such as these “need to be ironed out to be fair to consumers”. Mr Rabbitte was responding to Independent North Kildare TD Catherine Murphy who asked if there would be a different charge for businesses and households or a single charge. Ms Murphy pointed out that most companies had computers “but will not necessarily watch television”.

The Minister had previously said the charge “must end up being less than it is at the moment”. Mr Rabbitte described it as a “dangerous business”. He had answered a question about whether it could be less “by saying it could but I did not say it would”.

The charge will replace the existing licence but “is not an additional charge or tax or levy. If we improve the efficacy of the collection system to avoid the loss of up to €30 million, you never know.”

He first raised the possibility of a broadcast charge early last year because of the numbers of people who were watching broadcast content on an increasing number of devices including smartphone, personal computer and laptop.

He reiterated that “everyone benefits from the availability of these services, regardless of how content is accessed or relayed to the public. Therefore the cost should be borne by society as a whole.”

Stressing that it was unlikely a decision would be made this year because of the transfer to digital TV, he said “termination of analogue signals across Europe and the move to digital terrestrial television is high on the list of priorities” and RTÉ had invested €70 million in building the system.