Sir, It is interesting how a phrase catches on. Under the title "Mr Higgins and Local Radio" I am described by Caimin Jones in your letters column (July 2nd) as follows: "Mr Higgins has never been a friend of local radio and over the years many of us who have worked in this sector have found his attitude gratuitously insulting". Your readers will note the use of the term "friend". I am not inclined to reply to the personal abuse in Mr Jones's letter. However, for the record, I would like to correct some assertions that are simply not true.
I respected local radio during my life as Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. My sin, in Caimin Jones eyes was not to say "Yes Sir" when I was presented with a crude demand for a share of the licence fee in 1993 by those who rejected the suggestion of a State subsidy in 1988. I planned in my proposals for broadcasting legislation to help in other ways with assistance for training, awards for excellence, etc.
Mr Jones goes on to say: "Mr Higgins imputes that workers in local radio are without broadcasting creativity and merely react to results of data analysis". I did do no such thing. In my remarks I stressed the opposite - the opportunity and indeed necessity for creativity in local radio.
I gave examples in my speech in Galway of the contribution of those who had changed from the original commercial formula in local radio. I have regularly in the past four and a half years paid tribute to the broadcasting of Radio Kerry and Clare FM. The point I made was one similar, but not as crude, as that made by Mr Jones when he states in his letter: "It is true that several stations opted for a mainly music driven formula
He feels free to say this. I am not to be allowed a similar view even if I pay tribute, as I did, to those who changed their schedules to suit the cultural expectations of their listeners. I also spoke in Galway about the national and international implications of concentration of ownership but I realise that this is a taboo subject upon which, with honourable exceptions, media practitioners, analysts and academics can be expected to be silent.
I welcome Local Radio Radio Ireland, TV3 and TnaG, because I welcome Irish-based diversity. I have also unreservedly supported public service broadcasting. Indeed I used my position as a Minister for Culture to advance the position, now achieved, where public service broadcasting is referred to in a protocol to the draft European Treaty. During the Irish Presidency we pressed and succeeded in gaining respect for the culture space, for public service broadcasting.
Having done that, my successors have abolished the word "culture" at home. The term "culture" has been removed from the Ministry and the Department. That will remove much more than the "convoluted" thinking Mr Jones so objected to in my Green Paper on Broadcasting. I wish Caimin, a fine broadcaster, to whom I often paid well-earned tribute, the best of a deeper relationship with those he perceives as the "friends" of Local Radio. I hope we all survive them. In the future t9o, perhaps, the word "culture" will be acceptable again in Irish society.
For myself I simply want broadcasting to be democratic, active and interesting. - Yours, etc.,
Dail Eireann,
Baile Atha Cliath 2.