It follows calls to increase the fee last summer.
Announcing the national broadcaster’s new five-year strategy on Tuesday, RTÉ Director-General Dee Forbes called for the current TV licence fee to be reformed.
As outlined in ‘Renewing RTÉ for the next generation,’ the broadcaster’s new strategy will be reliant on an increase in public funding that includes a fresh approach to the current “inefficient” television licence system.
“The inefficient licence fee system should be reformed to support this policy and increase public funding levels for the benefit of the entire Irish media sector,” notes the report, arguing that there is a variety of reform options and choices available to the government.
“Underpinning this strategy, we have made some financial assumptions,” said Forbes. “We have assumed that the licence fee collection system will be reformed by Government within the next couple of years and that the reform will lead to increased public funding from 2019.”
Forbes previously proposed that the licence fee be raised from €160 to €175 in July of 2017.
In December, meanwhile, an Oireachtas report recommended that the TV licence fee be replaced with a ‘broadcasting charge’ and that responsibility for its collection should be transferred to the Revenue Commissioners.
However, the proposed new strategy would not necessarily result in an increase, according to the RTÉ report.
“The current levels of evasion (15%) and the high cost of collection (5.5%) provide significant scope for reform without any increase in the licence fee,” it states, adding that “more than €40 million in additional public funding would become available if the system was modernised.”
Elsewhere, Forbes spoke of RTÉ’s importance and duty to the Irish public.
“Now is a hugely important time for us,” she said. “We can’t sit still, we have to change, we have to innovate, we have to be creative, and we have to continue to tell Ireland’s stories.”
Clip via RTÉ
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