People Before Profit published a plan for the funding of RTÉ and public broadcasting in August last year. It was obvious at that stage that there was a funding crisis. The TV licence has always been a regressive charge. After the Government's issues and the Tubridy scandal, it was obvious this could not work but the Government has not made a decision. The consequence is that 13,000 people get dragged through the courts for a regressive charge that is not viable and that has to go. It is also clear that workers and jobs are going to be the collateral damage in RTÉ. They are talking about job suppression, which means good jobs will be privatised and outsourced, and the quality of public service broadcasting will be degraded. It will precisely hit arts, culture and entertainment.

The Deputy's time is up.

The Government needs to scrap the TV licence and bring in a digital tax to directly fund RTÉ and public service broadcasting.

We are not going to introduce a digital tax. Ireland is a hub for digital and we have huge investments and huge numbers of people working in digital and tech. I do not want to undermine that by imposing a tax on them. There are levies for regulation but that is a different thing. We have also provided emergency funding to RTÉ, precisely because we want to protect employment there and continue to fund public service broadcasting but I accept that is not sustainable into the medium term. We will make a decision on a new funding model this year. It will either be a household charge collected by the Revenue or Exchequer funding, and we will make that decision this year. In the meantime, the TV licence remains the means by which public service broadcasting is funded. It is not just about RTÉ. It is the law and I encourage people to comply with the law.