The members appointed to the RTE Authority ile de Valera, minister with responsibility for broadcasting, have their only opportunity of persuading the Minister with responsibility for broadcasting to exercise herself on the question of her legislative proposals, currently before the Oireachtas, and on the RTE finances, which are in crisis.

Unlike previous RTE Authority appointments, where it took upwards of a year to come to grips with the facts and figures of the national broadcaster, this new body has at its helm an incoming chair who has already served as a member of the outgoing authority.

As far back as December last, Paddy Wright, former president and chief executive officer of Jefferson Smurfit Group, was designated as incoming chairman. Mr Wright is joined on the new board of RTE by Des Geraghty of SIPTU, who also served on the previous authority.

I find it difficult to read Ms de Valera's mind in her appointment of a former director-general of RTE, except to hope that Joe Barry, and the member yet to be elected by RTE staff, with Mr Wright and Mr Geraghty, will know how to find their way around the organisation urgently when it comes to change, early retirement and redundancies.

Most importantly, however, is the question of the general quality of RTE programming. E.

The other members of the authority seem to represent important broadcasting ambitions and to that extent they are to be welcomed.

Garry Hynes and Mary Redmond will undoubtedly push for increased output in the area of drama, culture and the Irish language, and Stephen O'Byrnes will have a particular interest in current affairs.

These areas are among the most expensive and demanding programming strands in broadcasting. Mr Wright has let it be known that he is interested in quality programming which will not only enhance the schedules but also bring RTE into the international television market.

The authority will discover, and I hope they do this rather quickly, that the present path on which RTE travels is set entirely by the out-of-kilter ratio between income from advertising and income from the licence fee.

Two-thirds of the RTE income comes from advertising, which has had an untoward effect on programming policy. That policy has been set by the advertising world: high rating - good programme. It is only when one sees the Seven Ages of Sean O Mordha that one is reminded of what the national broadcaster should be about.

Talk about making Who Wants to be a Millionaire? puts RTE into the hands of the National Lottery. Those behind this proposal knew exactly what they were about when buying the option on that format in advance of any RTE agreement.

In reversing the present drift towards absolute commercialism, the RTE Authority must articulate a new policy about public service broadcasting and find allies within government, the Oireachtas and most especially among the licence-fee paying public about how to proceed towards a situation in which the Celtic Tiger is tamed by expressions of national culture.

RTE is still the largest cultural agent in the State: it employs more writers, artists, actors and musicians than any other agency and it provides a national news and current affairs output on which the citizen and democracy depend.

The task facing the RTE Authority is to introduce into public debate the whole question of the future funding of the national broad caster and, in particular, to persuade the Minister, the Government and all members of the Oireachtas that there is willingness on the part of the public to fund RTE.

Politicians of all parties sense that increasing the licence fee will bring the wrath of the electorate on them. The simple fact is that the people of Ireland have never been asked about how they see RTE and how to fund it in the future.

One of the important questions facing both the authority and the Minister is digitalisation and the future prospects for the new digital channels allocated by the Minister in May last year.

If RTE is already in difficulty with fulfilling its present remit on the existing two channels on television, how is it going to deal with three additional channels which it has been allocated?

Just as worrying is the whole question of TG4 for which the authority is responsible. It too has at least one additional channel allocation under the new DTT regime.

Much of the difficulties about the future of RTE rest on the provisions of Sile de Valera's badly drafted Broadcasting Bill, hopelessly adrift in the Oireachtas Committee for Heritage and the Irish Language since May 1999. The new authority must find a way of helping her through the morass to the benefit of a national broadcasting policy.

However, RTE is not without blame in all of this. Poor scheduling and commissioning policies and a lack of transparency in its accounts of itself and its actions need urgent attention. The in-house paranoia and defensive attitudes towards legitimate criticisms have to be addressed.

Staff redeployment and retraining, costs and content have to be at the top of the agenda for this authority and the reconstruction of a new broadcasting Bill to augment the Broadcasting Act of 1960 as a charter for renewal are matters both for the authority and its political master.

Muiris Mac Conghail teaches at the school of media at the Dublin Institute of Technology