Irish PM wants RTÉ to provide parliament TV service

Media Network Blog sourcing RTE states

Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said that the country’s public broadcaster RTÉ should be able to transmit a dedicated Dáil channel on television. Mr Ahern said that he had assisted the station with a healthy package of a licence fee for public service broadcasting and that if showing the Oireachtas (parliament) and its committees was not public service, then he would give up.

He insisted that RTÉ should be able to carry such a channel within the public service remit. He said compared with ‘a lot of tripe that is on TV’, the Oireachtas channel would be far better and very interesting.

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Dáil TV services are not televised by RTE (its under contract to a private company) the service falls under the remit of the leader speaker of the house (Ceann Comhairle) and should not be interfered with by party political of governmental influence. RTÉ international may well carry Dáil proceedings in the future but independent TG4 carries more Dáil hours than RTÉ does at the moment.

Bertie lets get the smoke and daggers out and get RTE & TG4 FTA and Dáil TV may well happen, but stop interfering in day to day Irish TV.