HOTELS, bars and bookmakers may have to pay more for a TV licence.
The proposals by An Post will “strengthen compliance and ensure more people pay while broadening the base of payers”.
The new measures could make commercial premises pay €169.50 for the first 15 screens, then a higher amount for every five further screens, according to a report in the Sunday Times.
Liability for paying would fall to the property owner rather than the occupier or tenant, which could improve An Post’s ability to identify households required to pay their licence by up to 20 per cent.
Property owners could give details of their licence payments, similar to the local property tax system.
Other recommendations include replacing the court summons procedure for non-compliance with fixed charge notices at first instance, and upgrading the licence fee holder database to cut manual processing.
Taoiseach Simon Harris has indicated that the future funding model of RTE could be a mix of TV licence and exchequer funding.
He said he hoped the Government could bring a “finality” to the question of how the national broadcaster should be funded this week.
He said: “I’ve said there’s two ways of funding public service broadcasting in my view — you go with some form of reformed licence fee model, or you go with direct exchequer fee funding.
“But that’s kind of a straw man way of looking at it. Perhaps there’s a way in the middle.”
“I’ve lain down some principles that are very important to me, I don’t want to see any taxpayer having to pay more in terms of a licence fee that they are today, I want to have an understanding as to what we’re funding in terms of public service broadcasting
“I want to see how the excellent public service broadcasting done by RTÉ can be supported but also a recognition public service broadcasting also happens by other outlets, be they independent television outlets, be they local radio or local media, they’re some of the key things.
“And then the fourth and it’s really important to me this one, I want to see the model being sustainable, I don’t want to see a Government do something that just kind of looks like grand we’ve sorted public service broadcasting for a few months.
“I want to know that whatever funding model is in place is durable and can be long-lasting and I think all of those principles can be met.”