A chara, - As someone who took an active part in the grassroots campaign which eventually led to the establishment of TG4/TnaG 12 years ago, I sometimes wonder if our vision of an Irish-language television service has come close to fulfilment.
I imagined in those heady days that by this time we would have a service offering live, Irish-language coverage of all the major national sporting events, particularly the All Ireland football and hurling championships. This has not come to pass due to the failure of the cash-hungry GAA to see beyond the big-money deals offered by the likes of RTÉ, TV3 or Setanta.
TG4 cannot hope to compete with any of these broadcasters in terms of acquisition budgets or audience share.
It is extremely ironic that TG4 can broadcast live the All England Lawn Tennis Championships from Wimbledon and the Tour de France, both great sporting events from foreign shores, but is prohibited from providing similarly excellent coverage of the major native sporting events of the Irish summer. All the more so, given the commitment in the GAA constitution to promote the Irish language.
TG4 can afford to broadcast these events as the owners of the rights weigh the station's audience share in Ireland as they determine the level of payments due. I have no doubt the GAA could accommodate TG4 at no cost to the organisation if it wanted to. It could, for instance, offer a specific package - the rights to broadcast all its games as Gaeilge - in addition to the other packages it offered to broadcasters earlier this year. Given the failure of the national broadcaster, RTÉ, to live up its statutory obligation to the Irish language with respect to sporting events, and TV3's non-existent interest in Irish-language programming, I suspect that this package could be secured by TG4 at a fraction of the cost of the English-language equivalent.
If this proves unworkable, I propose that Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan includes as a condition on the "free-to-air" list of sporting events that these should be accompanied by commentary in both official languages of the State.
It would then be up to the broadcasters to find ways of meeting this legal requirement, but I envisage no problems in this era of digital broadcasting. It is worth pointing out, for instance, that Irish-language commentary of the McRory Cup Final has been provided by BBC Northern Ireland on a digital channel as it simultaneously broadcast the English-language commentary on a terrestrial channel.
I look forward to the time when the GAA and our national broadcasters can be as accommodating to the Irish language community as are the All England Lawn Tennis Association and the Tour de France. - Is mise,
CONCUBHAR Ó LIATHÁIN,
Cúil Aodha,
Co Chorcaí.