New chairperson from Tipperary selected for Oireachtas Committee

It has been announced that Tipperary North TD Alan Kelly has been chosen to be the new chair of a powerful Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture & Sport.

Responding to the news, the TD said: "I'm delighted to be asked by Ivana and my Labour colleagues to chair the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture & Sport. It is a real privilege to be asked to chair such an important committee.

"We will meet in the coming weeks once all members are picked and choose the topics and areas of interest that we as a committee wish to explore along with all relevant legislation that will come our way.

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"Some issues such as the future of RTE and public service broadcasting, managing online disinformation, funding for the Arts and various Sporting issues will no doubt continue to be topics of interest to the new committee. However, I have no doubt that the committee members will have other topics of interest that they will wish to pursue.

"One issue I am determined to push on with though is the future funding of local and regional media; local newspapers and radio stations. They provide an invaluable service across the country and their future funding needs to be addressed. In recent times the Coimisiún na Meán funding schemes such as the local democracy and court reporting scheme has helped local publications but more needs to be done.

"In particular there needs to be joined up thinking regarding how state agencies and government departments allocate their adverting spends; otherwise one arm of the state is supporting local media while the other isn’t. I think this is an issue we will have to dig into.

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One other topic that I believe needs support is the issue of how sports organisations can help communities tackle various different health campaigns and in particular the issue of drug abuse. Drugs are a menace in our society and young people are turning to them. I’m convinced sporting organisations can help repel this tide with support from the state as they are amongst the largest influencers across society. I’m hoping we can agree to raise this issue as a topic for the committee too.

"Over the coming weeks I’m looking forward to at long last meeting my fellow committee members and getting going with the invaluable work our committee will no doubt do."