De Valera says RTE could use `spare' £117m

There is no reason RTE should not use some of its cash reserves to maintain the quality of services, the Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands has said.

In a letter to The Irish Times today, Ms de Valera rejects criticisms in this newspaper last week that she regarded the station's £117 million cash balance from the sale of Cablelink as a "wasting resource".

Reducing the balance to a more appropriate level for an organisation such as RTE would not be the road to commercial ruin, she writes.

"I could not stand over a situation where the licence feepayer was required to fund balances of the order maintained by RTE at present. Spending some of these exceptional reserves on maintaining the quality of existing services could not be deemed to be `frittering away' resources."

Ms de Valera also restates the Government's support for the station's involvement in the "roll-out of digital services". She adds: "Unfortunately, the plans put forward by RTE for new digital services in its application were not convincing, and I will be asking RTE to present a more robust case for its proposed new digital terrestrial television channels."

Meanwhile, in an article in today's Irish Times, RTE's chief news correspondent, Mr Charlie Bird, has supported calls for the salaries of prominent RTE broadcasters to be published. Mr Bird said the station had done itself no favours over the years by refusing to divulge the information, hiding behind "the most lame of excuses, commercial secrecy".

But he also welcomed the fact that a public debate had begun on the future of broadcasting. "The discussion about the direction and funding of public service broadcasting in this country is long overdue. If we don't wake up soon, Rupert Murdoch and Sir Anthony O'Reilly will control everything between them."

A spokesman for Ms de Valera dismissed criticisms by Fine Gael's spokesman on arts and heritage, Mr Dinny McGinley, of her claims of alleged bias in RTE's coverage of the licence-fee increase.

Mr McGinley said if she had a complaint "she should avail of the appropriate machinery, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, instead of using and abusing the authority of her office to browbeat the service".