RTE has denied reports that it will be seeking a £50 increase in the television licence fee, bringing it to £120. It has confirmed, however, that it will be applying for a rise in the coming months.
Yesterday RTE issued a short statement saying that reports in a newspaper that a £50 increase in the licence fee was being sought were "totally untrue".
"RTE will be seeking an increase in the coming months, but no decision has been taken about the size of this increase," it said.
Mr Kevin Healy, RTE's Director of Public Affairs, told The Irish Times he had been very surprised to read reports of a £50 increase and said they were not true.
"We haven't decided on a figure as yet. We will be putting in an application to the Minister in the next few months which will be very detailed as to how we propose to spend the money. Any increase will be put towards public service programming and will not, for instance, be used to fund any deficit," Mr Healy said.
The licence fee was last increased in July 1996, by £8 to £70 for a colour licence and to £52 for a black-and-white licence.
Yesterday a spokesman for the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands said an application for an increase in the licence fee had not yet been received from RTE.
Speculation about the size of the increase has developed in the past two weeks since RTE's new chairman, Mr Paddy Wright, warned that the station would lose a record £13.5 million this year and could make even bigger losses next year if it did not cut costs. Mr Wright confirmed that RTE would be seeking an unspecified increase in the licence fee in the autumn. However, he said the station first had to show the Government that its costs were under control and that any extra revenue would go into improved programming.
In 1998, the most recent figures available, licence fee income brought in £63.3 million.