Mary Lou McDonald: The TV Licence must be scrapped. It will only put more pressure on workers and families already struggling with the cost of living. FG/FF/Greens are getting this RTE funding question very wrong. Again. #scrapthetvlicence
by Hairy_Arse
31 comments
Shocked they would suggest such a popular idea.
Mary Lou Mc spouting off populist nonsense. Again
She’s right – TV licence inspector shouldn’t be a job (no offence to any who are). Give them a budget and replace the top brass if they can’t stick to it + advertising.
‘The rich’ will pay for it, I guess. Same as they pay for every other fucking thing in this country.
So why don’t SF scrap them in Northern Ireland first?
The entire reason the licence fee exists is so the government of the day cannot control the *entire* budget for the State media, and therefore have a potential impact on its bias.
I still consider a public broadcaster a good thing. And I don’t like the idea of a fully government funded and budget controlled media.
I would gladly pay a TV licence if they reform the rte. Get rid of all their entertainment and commercial programming. They’ve proved that it’s just all corruption and nepotism. Rather, rte should just be a news channel. Extra funding can be distributed to specific arts programs and social programming among other channels, don’t give RTE oversight over this funding.
Says one thing in Dublin and something else in Belfast…… which one is the real SF 🤔
[Single mother from Donegal jailed for not paying her TV licence](https://www.thejournal.ie/donegal-woman-jailed-not-paying-tv-licence-1962677-Feb2015/)
>The Sinn Féin councillor said the gardaí informed her that she was for ‘up the road’ meaning that she was being taken to Mountjoy prison for fail to pay a TV licence fine of €450.
>The fine was handed down in Letterkenny District Court last spring. Doherty said the mother-of-one had already paid €212 of the money she owed.
>It was deemed by whoever was in charge that day that it was worthwhile taking two gardaí away from their duties here and taking her the whole way to Mountjoy.
Bonus: They couldn’t go through the North, had to go by Sligo.
What are we doing here..?
If the government had announced they were getting rid of it, she would be out calling for it to be kept.
i disagree with this .
The bit she’s leaving out is that, as with everything in the SF view of the world, the State will pick up the tab.
I’ve never paid it and never will. Not because I can’t afford it but because I don’t have tv, I don’t watch rte and even if I did have a tv I think it’s a load of bollox. Id rather do a few days in the joy than pay it. It’s a hill I’m willing to die on.
Is there a reason RTE can’t stand on it’s own feet similary to independent broadcasters? Why do they need any taxpayer funding?
looks like she just gained 946k votes
This is classic SF.
All very well and popular to support scrapping the licence, but whats the plan to replace it?
and it _will_ need to be replaced.
We need a public broadcaster, all the adults in the room agree with this.
Personally, I think the licence is an antiquated non-progrssive, entirely voluntary tax. It should be replaced with tax from the exchequer placed into a ringfenced fund.
But MLM will never say that out loud because it would kill the credit she gets from saying ‘scrapthetvlicence’
While I think the TV license is bad value for what RTE gives us.
A national broadcaster is an important part of a modern society.
The concept is that if the nation owns/pays for a broadcaster it can deliver independent unbiased content for all .
That commercial channels would never make.
The alternative is channels owned paid for by people who can put whatever bias on it .
Think Fox News.
It’s almost like one of those things that could be funded by advertising..
Why not just sell RTE to News Corp and we can get all our news from X.
RTE needs to be scrapped together with advertising. Create a new organisation focused on educational television like PBS.
Defund rte! 😉
Well. Whatever happens in todays current global state and in a democratic country I, for one, believe that a news organisation, or public broadcaster, not influenced by any commercial entity is a far safer option than one owned by a private company with its own agenda.
As far as I’m aware TV licence inspectors are employed by An Post and it’s usually a job that people are promoted to working for An Post
The reason why the state doesn’t control funds to RTÉ is because they can then decide what they publish, if someone like Clare Daly, Mick Wallace or Mary Lou McDonald has control they would then censor negative stories against them, we have already seen them trying this with them all suing RTÉ for “defamation” (reporting a story or what they said)
Those world press freedom forms keep on saying that people like Mary and mick using those defamation suits are encroaching on press freedom
It’d certainly be nice to not have to ever deal with that little bit of admin. However one positive thing I could say about the TV licence fee is that it serves is a nice little annual reminder to all citizens of just how little value we get out of RTE. It’s a complete anachronism within the modern world. What’s that? I can pay €160 for “Ireland’s Oldest Churches”, “Rivers of Ireland”, endless GAA shite and the Angelus? Bargain!
I’d like to see a broader plan to reform the RTE because as far as I can tell it isn’t meeting the needs of anyone, and is delivering extraordinarily poor value for money especially considering it is allowed to run advertising as well as being public-funded.
I’d propose a narrowing of focus, one channel which targets news, reporting and items of national relevance which can’t already be sourced elsewhere more cheaply. Yes it would be shite but it already is shite, at least this way it’d be cheap shite 🙂
Vote for me, I will bring back Wanderly Wagon, The Den, Bosco and Mike Murphy’s Micro Quiz-em. On loop 24/7.
It’ll just be paid completely from taxpayers if no license. The entire funding of 725 package is a joke. And saying they pulled budget out of welfare now as well.
“TV licence must be scrapped” is not a policy.
Either its “RTE must self fund via commercials” or “RTE must be exchequer funded” or indeed “RTE staff should work for free” or better yet “RTE should not exist”
Which is it, Mary Lou?
Sinn Fein are heading towards single figure support if they continue this path. A pity because FF/FG don’t deserve to continue.
Remember, if families weren’t struggling, they would have zero reason to vote for her.
I’ll never be able to trust her since their Yes/yes campaign, and their vote in favour for hate speech laws.
ah look shes trying to crawl back, i cant stand sinn fein, FF, FG and she tweeted waffle like this before.
I’m a populist. Vote for me.