Media

Analysis: Expect more exhortations from government over licence fee evasion in the months ahead

Successive governments have avoided making any changes to the collection of the €160 TV licence fee even though the evasion rate officially remains at 15 per cent

Catherine Martin: “I ask everyone to think of the absolute value of public service broadcasting to society and to our democracy and that paying the TV licence is the law of the land.” Picture: Collins

The increase in the scale of TV licence fee evasion since the RTÉ payments controversy is a problem that the government does not want to deal with.

Figures supplied to Brendan Griffin, the Fine Gael Kerry TD, show a 27 per cent drop in the number of TV licences issued in the first week of July.

This coincided with the time when RTÉ executives were before Oireachtas committees to explain the under-reporting of payments to ...