Daly call for establishment of TV channel for EU parliament

MEP Clare Daly has called for the establishment of a new public service broadcast channel for European Parliament proceedings, in the style of Oireachtas TV.

The MEP said that Irish citizens do not understand what happens in the European Union, and the establishment of a TV channel would help bridge the gap.

Daly told Leinster House that there was a “glaring deficit” of coverage on matters of the European Union is “quite simply shocking”.

The Dublin MEP said there is a disconnect between Irish citizens and the European Union that isn’t seen in other member states.

To Daly’s point, the 2019 European Parliament elections saw an Irish turnout of less than 50%, which was a strong contrast to the likes of Germany and Spain, which saw a turnout of over 60%.

The turnout for the 2019 elections was the lowest turnout for an EU election in Ireland since 1999, and in recent weeks, Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews said there is “very limited” media coverage of EU proceedings.

Ireland will elect an extra MEP in 2024, bringing the total number of MEPs to 15, with the Midlands-North-West constituency tapped to receive an extra MEP.

Daly reiterated Andrews’ point that EU institutions are “not really understood” in Ireland due to a lack of coverage in the media of EU affairs.

Daly said there is an information deficit in Irish media when it comes to the EU and said that this results in Irish citizens only having a limited knowledge of “critical issues involving billions of European taxpayers’ money.”

She said that accessing information about proceedings from Brussels and Strasbourg were “hard to find.”

“The main portal is a complex and confusing website. The names of proceedings and parliamentary committees are obscure. Before they view anything, people must know what they are looking for. This favours insiders, but excludes the wider public,” she said.

The left-wing MEP pointed to the establishment of Oireachtas TV in 2011 as a way of making politics more accessible and transparent to the average citizen and would like to see it replicated on a Europe-wide scale.

“It was brilliant. It brought the Dáil and the Seanad to the people. It’s been shocking for us to see the amount of people who actually watch it and the reason why they do is because we have moved away from proper media in Ireland a lot.”

“That old style reporting is gone. It’s been replaced by opinion-forming – media often give you their opinion on something, they don’t actually report. Oireachtas TV gives that,” she said.

“All we are saying is we need something like that for the European Parliament.”

Daly said the ongoing scandal at RTÉ and mooted reforms were a chance to help establish the channel, and has reached out to Minister for Media Catherine Martin about the issue.