Against the backdrop of a cost of living which increases unceasingly, pressing upon households with a weight that is now all but untenable, the government has before it a new proposal: to levy a charge on the use of streaming services such as Netflix. At a fundamental level, this levy would function as a tax on those providers of streaming services, such as Netflix, for the purpose of fostering greater investment in the indigenous development of media. This proposal has been recommended to the coalition government by a cross-party committee, which encourages the swift implementation of this measure, not only in spite of public unease, but internal disagreements in government.
According to the feasibility report, the levy would begin at 3 per cent of the revenues of video-on-demand services, with smaller impositions upon subscription television and advertising. The total yield, projected at €20 million per annum, is itself a trifle – covering scarcely a month of RTÉ’s expenditure, and a mere fraction of the cultural subsidies already in place. As such, the levy proposed is at once burdensome and inconsequential.
A truth must be understood concerning this discussion: large multinational providers of streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and Disney will not generously absorb this levy. The cost of this measure would, ultimately, be passed onto the consumer in the form of higher fees. Thus, the measure becomes less of an impost imposed on foreign corporations, but yet another tax thrown onto the Irish people. It bears remembering that on these subscriptions, we already pay the standard rate of tax: using the language of fostering Irish culture, this proposal would likely serve to raise the cost of simple recreation for little tangible benefit.
It is equally important to understand the economic incoherence of this plan. Streaming platforms are not unwilling interlopers who refuse to invest: quite the contrary. Netflix, for instance, has already voluntarily financed Irish productions, which demonstrates a willingness to support our local projects when genuine quality is promised. The imposition of a compulsory charge puts in place a bureaucratic diktat, where instead entrepreneurial judgement should lead. This non-permissive environment risks deterring the very same investment that it purports to encourage. A freer media environment entails that content will thrive when it is of good quality, when it is compelling and when it is exportable: it cannot be conjured into vibrancy by decree.
A telling feature of this proposition is that it is, by nature, backwards-looking: the premise that traditional broadcast requires protection from the growth of streaming. For better or worse, the majority of young people have left behind the television set in favour of alternatives: 55 per cent of Irish television-licence holders have considered abandoning the licence altogether, since their video consumption is almost exclusively online, with under-30s spending nearly nine hours each week on digital platforms. This only takes into account those people who are holders of television licences – another issue worth raising about the funding of media in Ireland, fraught with what many may see as the perennial Irish problem of badly managing money. Rather than a passing fashion, this speaks to a broader cultural shift away from this form of consumption. Burdening the new medium such that the past may linger on a little longer is not a sensible decision for the government to make.
Even if the idea were sound on an economic level, one might always question whether the Irish State has demonstrated any particular aptitude in administering cultural and broadcast policy. From the recurrent financial crises of RTÉ to the lumbering inefficiencies that afflict so many public ventures, the record is bleak. Are we to imagine that greater funds, extracted coercively, would be spent with impartiality and in good taste? More plausibly, the funds will be distributed based on favouritism and chewed up by bureaucracy. The idea that a political committee might better divine audience tastes than audiences themselves is at best naïve and at worst contemptuous.
Advocates contend that Irish content is already flourishing, and that further subsidy will allow it to bloom. This assertion deserves recognition. It is plain to see that certain works have found international acclaim — Normal People and Derry Girls are prominent examples. But these are exceptions, not the rule. Much domestic programming languishes in obscurity, hampered by uneven writing and a narrow imaginative horizon. The difficulty is not merely one of finance but of quality. If Irish productions often fail to “travel,” it is because they lack the narrative ambition or universal appeal demanded in a global marketplace. A levy cannot remedy this deficiency; contrarily, by guaranteeing funds regardless of merit, it risks rewarding mediocrity.
What renders the scheme particularly indefensible is its timing. With public services stretched, housing unattainable for many young families, and wages lagging behind prices, the priority of the government ought to be alleviating burdens, not devising ingenious new means of increasing them. One is tempted to ask: who, surveying the manifold crises of Irish society in 2025, concluded that what the nation most urgently required was dearer Netflix subscriptions?
If the State believes in the importance of supporting Irish art and storytelling — as indeed it should — let it do so openly, through the Exchequer, where expenditures can, with any luck, be held to account. To conceal this policy in a levy is regressive, and represents not a defiant and brave protection of national culture, but a muddled contrivance, a tax on the many to subsidise the few, and a measure that would be remembered for its clumsiness.
