Sir, - In a recent article by Michael Foley "RTE must not forget public service remit" (Opionion, August 7th), and in the response to it by Deirdre Henchy of RTE (August 15th), the notion of RTE's public service remit and its fulfillment is bandied about as if it were a reality. But how can such a remit be either "fulfilled" or forgotten if it does not even exist?
The absence of such a remit in Irish legislation articulating the kind of programming which the taxpayer is paying for distorts competition in the marketplace. It allows RTE, as the sole recipient of the £70 million licence fee tax, to use it (together with its commercial revenues) to compete unfairly with private sector operators such as TV3, thereby curtailing further investment. RTE's lack of accountability for its use of the licence fee in the absence of a public service remit is in breach of the Treaty of Rome and forms the basis of TV3's formal complaint to the European Commission on this issue.
As to whether or not Who wants to be a Millionaire would fall within RTE's public service remit, were such a remit linked to the licence fee to be established, who knows? But, at least taxpayers would have the means by which to begin measuring whether or not they were getting value for money. - Yours, etc.,
Mark Deering, Director of Regulatory and Legal Affairs, TV3, Dublin 24.