New RTÉ chief wants to double the cost of the TV licence because it's 'value for money'

The new director general at RTÉ has claimed that the Irish TV licence should be doubled because it is 'incredible value for money', and that if the fee was increased the State broadcaster would be able to pump more money into its content and improve the quality of shows on the station.

Speaking on the Sean O'Rourke show on RTÉ Radio One this morning, Dee Forbes said that the €160 charge was less than that of other countries in Europe, citing Scandinavian nations in particular.

"The licence fee is 40c a day. I think it's incredible value for money... quite honestly I think it should be double that," she said.

"If you look to places like the Scandinavian markets where their licence fee over double that and you see what you're getting for that, quite honestly the content is singing," she said.

"What I'm saying to you is the more money we have to play with content the more we can do."

Forbes did backtrack slightly in a statement released straight after the show however, saying that she has no intention of ramping up the fee and that any notion of doing that is 'nonsense'.

"The current licence fee, at just over 40c a day, is I believe great value. Any notion that it be doubled is nonsense. What I am focused on is reform of the fee collection system to recover some €40m per annum that is lost to the entire Irish sector every year through evasion," read the statement.

The way in which the licence fee is collected is due to be reformed in the future, due to problems with the current system of collection.