Government's 'reprehensible' failure to publish report on future of media criticised

Senator Shane Cassells said the report was a 'political hot potato' but needed to be debated. File picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The continued failure to publish a report on the future funding of the media is "reprehensible", it has been claimed.

The Future of Media Commission report has been with Media Minister Catherine Martin and the Taoiseach since October, but has yet to be published. The report has cost more than €420,000 to put together.

The report is expected to make recommendations on the future of the TV licence, as well as proposals on the funding of independent media and local radio stations.

Senator Shane Cassells said the report was a "political hot potato" but needed to be debated. He said RTÉ had come before the Oireachtas Media Committee last week but was discussing potential changes to its core funding structure "in the absence of this report".

"It's just reprehensible that the report hasn't been published. It's on the desk since October 16 last year," he said.

"Five years ago, we had an Oireachtas committee on media report on the fact that Revenue should actually collect the licence fee and that it should be done in a household charge. But nobody in the political system actually had the guts to go and grapple with that. Five years later, we get a Future of Media Commission report and that's sitting on a desk now for four months."

'Silver bullets' to save the media industry

He said there was now a report that is saying it has the "silver bullets" to save the media industry but it is sitting on a desk.

It's been leaked to be damned, we know it proposes abolishing the TV licence fee. We know that the Department of Finance has already bought that suggestion as well.

"But we better get it out in the media. We better get it out in the open. We better start debating this because if it's taken five years to not act on the last suggestion, it will take another five years to not act on this suggestion. And in the interim period, we're going to see the death of local newspapers, the death of national newspapers, the death of newsrooms."

Mr Cassells was part of a Fianna Fáil group of TDs and senators calling for both clear definitions of online harms in the forthcoming Online Safety and Media Regulation (OSMR) Bill and assurances of a workable individual complaint and redress mechanism before the legislation was enacted.

Campaigners and critics of Ms Martin's bill, published last month, said the individual complaints procedure was vital for the success of the bill.

Cork South-West TD Christopher O'Sullivan said the procedure, which is subject to an expert review panel due to report within the next 90 days, was needed to ensure that social media platforms addressed abuse.

"Young people in general told us they had horrific experiences of harm and abuse, harassment, bullying, and the level of satisfaction that they got from these social media platforms was almost zero. 

"I firmly believe the only way to properly address that is through an individual complaints mechanism. We understand the challenges. We understand the difficulties in resourcing something like that, but this is potentially one of the most import pieces of legislation that will be enacted in this Government."