Media legislation ‘must protect public interest’

Legislation on media mergers will place “a very high premium on the public interest”, said Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte.

Mr Rabbitte was speaking at the MacGill Summer School, where he addressed the conference on reform in the public service.

Before his address, he said undue concentration of the media was something that had to be guarded against. He said his legislation on possible media mergers would be published in the autumn, adding: “It places a very high premium on the public interest, and the legislation will have significant regard to that report.”

Mr Rabbitte said a major focus of the legislation would be based on the “Sreenan principles”, recommendations from the 2008 report of the advisory group on media mergers chaired by Paul Sreenan SC.

Mr Rabbitte also knocked back a suggestion by Cabinet colleague Leo Varadkar that privacy laws were needed to govern the media.

“Privacy legislation would curb some colour of the tabloids in particular,” he said, but he did not know if that was necessary. “At the moment, I would rather it didn’t prove necessary.”

Mr Rabbitte also said he was in favour of cutting the number of grades of public service workers to further overhaul the public sector.

“A reduction in the number of grades might not only simplify payroll and pension administration, but might reduce current levels of bureaucracy — the same job being done several times due to personnel at different grade levels checking and rechecking the same tasks,” he said.

Fianna Fáil’s John McGuinness told the conference that hiring external labour relations professionals to negotiate the Croke Park agreement might have cost the county less money.