The live coverage of the Public Accounts Committee's investigation into the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report into alleged widespread tax evasion, could end a decade of televising parliamentary proceedings with a blockbuster - providing the electorate with an exceptional insight into the workings of the State, live.
Only once, in November 1994, since the televising of Oireachtas proceedings begun in 1991, has the imagination of the Irish public been truly absorbed by the drama and febrile atmosphere of events in the Dail.
The live coverage of the fall of the Fianna Fail-Labour coalition attracted more than three times the number of viewers (389,000) who watched the announcement of the first IRA ceasefire in 1994. The Dail drama was even able to hold its own (500,000 viewers) against the Republic of Ireland's soccer match against Northern Ireland, which had an average of 1.1 million viewers. Oireachtas Report would normally attract an audience of around 40,000 viewers.
Because of the rules on the live broadcasting of major political events - "that such events be broadcast in their entirety" - and uncertainty surrounding the timetable of the Wallace committee's hearings in 1994, RTE could only broadcast recorded excerpts of the committee's investigation into the events leading to the downfall of the Fianna Fail-Labour coalition.
While the live coverage of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on TG4 does interfere with its core audience commitment to children's programming TG4's ability to televise the public sessions of the committee live is fortuitous.
Since the PAC is sitting before our new autumn schedule comes on air, says Padhraic O Ciardha, the station's leascheannasa, "we have a bit more flexibility at this time of the year then we would have in the spring or in the late winter".. "It just proved possible, for a number of reasons, that our application found favour with the [Joint Committee on broadcasting and parliamentary information] committee," he says.
TG4 and RTE have applied unsuccessfully in the past to broadcast the proceedings of the tribunals.
The live coverage of the PAC is something of a coup for the management of TG4 in Connemara as high audiences figures E, will give the renaming exercise (TG4) and the new autumn schedule a welcome boost among a greater mainstream audience.
The public mood has already been galvanised by this issue following the remarkable series of events that have led to the hearings. The public first heard of the issue in April 1998 with the reports in the media "concerning the use by AIB of `bogus' non-resident accounts as a means of evading Deposit Interest Retention Tax".
Widely publicised investigations by the PAC followed providing it with much important information, and revelations of the contested deal between AIB and the Revenue Commissioners. In response to this the PAC set up the C&AG's investigation in December (1998), and its findings of large amounts of unpaid DIRT tax and collusion by the banks and others were published in August this year amidst more media coverage and public outcry.
In the past many people have been put off by dull parliamentary coverage due to the constraints imposed on the types of shots permitted by rules laid down by the Joint Committee on Broadcasting and Parliamentary Information. These have tended to obscure the cut and thrust of political debate. ail and elsewhere. However, this time viewers will be treated, for the first time, with reaction shots. One previous Oireachtas Report presenter described the practice of televising the Dail, up to now, "as akin to the camera focusing on the referee during a hurling match, while a fight was going on at the other end of the pitch".
The introduction of reaction shots will permit viewers to see the reactions of a person (or party) "being referred to by the speaker" while the latter is still speaking, a significant change in the ability of broadcasters to make the programmes more interesting.
The innovation comes following a spate of criticism last year by TDs of the "graveyard slot" at which Oireachtas Report was broadcast on television. The late night/early morning broadcasts were criticised by Mr Pat Rabbitte as being designed only for "drunks and insomniacs".
It is believed that the reaction shots and other concessions were permitted following RTE's undertaking to give Oireachtas programming greater prominence in its schedule.
Of the six members of the PAC, Pat Rabbitte, is by far the most skilled public speaker, and television performer. Whether he decides to use his considerable media skills, as he has in the past, in this new TV environment remains to be seen.
Coverage will be broadcast on TnaG throughout September, on Mondays from 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.; Tuesdays to Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.