Broadcasting is a public good like education or the health service that cannot be regulated by the marketplace, the director-general of RTE, Mr Bob Collins, said yesterday.
Speaking at Oireachtas na Gaeilge, the Irish-language festival in Tralee, Co Kerry, he said the Government had accepted RTE's proposals for the introduction of digital television. "In essence it means that when digital television comes to Ireland, it will come in an Irish framework, through a policy and a structure determined in Ireland and geared to Ireland's needs and ambitions. This is an essential piece of national policy," he said.
"No one should underestimate its import for social, cultural and economic life on this island. Thanks to this policy and this legislation, Irish programme-makers and broadcasters can take their place in the digital scheme of things, and be sure that they will continue to make high quality programmes in Ireland for Irish audiences. And Ireland will have its own doorway into the Information Society."
Speaking of the second anniversary of Irish-language television station, TnaG, Mr Collins addressed recent criticism of it. It was right and proper that the station was conceived as a national service, he said. TnaG was about the voice and vision of the Irish-speaking community in all its diversity. It looked outwards to the wider broadcasting community in its commissioning, co-productions and programme acquisitions.
Broadcasting could renew cultural tradition, and there was no doubt that TnaG was an outstanding instance of this phenomenon. "For that reason I have no patience with those who carp about TnaG."
There were influential people who refused to recognise the success of TnaG, that it had a bigger audience than either Sky News or MTV. TnaG expressed what it meant to be young, hopeful and outward-looking in Ireland on the eve of the new millennium.
"Perhaps that very fact explains some of the criticism directed at the channel. Young people have different values from older people. That is their right. And it must find expression on television and radio."
Mr Collins said the profusion of digital services would reinforce rather than call into question the value of public service broadcasting, which will reflect the full range of Irish experience in the maelstrom of material on the airwaves.
In public service broadcasting quality content was seen as an entitlement rather than an exception, he said.
"This society must retain its self-expression in the media and, as far as the broadcast media are concerned, I believe that the corner-stone of our sovereignty must be securely funded public service broadcasting, owned by the Irish people, working for them and enjoying their popular support."