An Oireachtas committee has said that any delays in the passage or enactment of legislation overhauling the funding and governance of public service broadcasting should not stop the Government from providing TG4 with interim multiyear funding packages.
The Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill will give effect to the European Media Freedom Act, which requires that State funding for broadcasters be predictable and adequate to fulfil their public service obligations.
RTÉ received multiannual funding for the first time in a generation last year when the Coalition agreed to give €725 million for RTÉ, covering the 2025, 2026 and 2027 fiscal years.
TG4 and the television production companies that create its programming have long called for the Irish language broadcaster to receive multiyear funding. Currently, the station receives an annual allocation in the budget.
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In a report published on Wednesday, the joint Oireachtas media committee, which has been scrutinising the heads of the Broadcasting Bill, recommended that TG4 should be afforded “an interim multiannual package affording sustainable and predictable resourcing” should there be “any delay in the passage or enactment” of the legislation.
On Thursday, a spokeswoman for TG4 said the broadcaster welcomed the recommendation. “We are pleased that many of the points raised in our submission are reflected in the report’s 85 recommendations,” she said.
TG4 also welcomed the committee’s call for the station to gain editorial control of its news service from RTÉ. Under its public service obligations, the national broadcaster supplies Nuacht TG4 to the Irish language broadcaster despite the service being largely produced in TG4’s Connemara studios.
The Future of Media Commission (FOMC) in 2021 recommended that TG4 have editorial control over its news output. The station’s director general, Deirdre Ní Choistín, told The Irish Times recently that enacting the commission’s recommendation was one of her top priorities.
The cross-party Oireachtas media committee recommended that a provision be included in the Broadcasting Bill to transfer editorial control of Nuacht to TG4.
A spokesman for RTÉ said the broadcaster “is supportive of the FOMC’s recommendation”.
He added that RTÉ “broadly welcomes” all of the committee’s recommendations.
Separately, a representative body for the independent television and film companies said it is concerned about the committee’s suggestion that a requirement for RTÉ to spend 25 per cent of its public funding on outside productions could be deferred.
The committee said that any deferral in the enactment of the increased commissioning target should be “strictly timebound” and that the Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan should consider “a phased increase in commissioning spend in the interim”.
In a statement, Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) chief executive Susan Kirby said any postponement of the measure “would mean tens of millions of euro not reaching the independent sector, with a direct impact on the creation of Irish drama, documentary and unscripted programming”.
The committee also recommended that increased independent commissioning be “subject to strict public procurement rules”.
