Immediate action by the Government is needed on national policy for Irish digital broadcasting, the director-general of RTE, Mr Bob Collins, has told a conference in Dublin.
Digital broadcasting would result in up to 30 new channels in the State by the turn of the century, he said.
Speaking at the conference, "Ireland in the Information Age", Mr Collins said legislation was needed, explaining that 140 digital channels would be introduced in the UK next year.
He is to approach the Government seeking clearance for experimental digital terrestrial television trials followed by a pilot service.
He said it was the right choice for Ireland, offering the most effective and least expensive means of delivering programmes to audiences, along with fairer access to educational and economic opportunities throughout the State. However, it was not solely a technical challenge for RTE. He stressed the implications for national sovereignty in mass communications.
"If we are to retain a determining interest in our own culture, in our own economic and political development no less than in our popular entertainment, we need to adopt a national policy for digital broadcasting now," said Mr Collins. It was RTE's view that a policy framework was needed within the next few months and that this should identify an early start for the new Irish digital services, preferably by autumn 1999 or sooner.
He warned against a "false sense of security", saying Ireland's digital policy was currently being set in London, by the Department of National Heritage.
The technology would bring better programmes as well as new interactive services enabling every home, school, business and community centre to be included in the information society. But it was essential that there be no divisions between the haves and have-nots. Mr Louis Uchitelle, co-author of a special New York Times report on "Downsizing of America", addressed the conference on "Technological Changes and Insecurity in the Workplace".
He said more than 43 million jobs had been "erased" in the US since 1979.
Increasingly the jobs disappearing were those of higher-paid white-collar workers, many at large corporations, often at the peak of their careers. A poll in the New York Times showed that nearly 75 per cent of all households had had experience with redundancy since 1980. He said that while permanent lay-offs had been symptomatic of most recessions, now they were occurring in the same large number even during an economic recovery that had lasted five years and even at companies that were doing well.