Most Irish news organisations, including the major print and broadcast media, have had weak revenues in recent years. RTÉ has reported operating losses again for 2017, the private broadcasters have been under pressure and the national newspaper groups have been losing circulation and readership.

Mainstream media around worldwide have lost advertising revenue to Facebook and Google. Several Irish politicians, including An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and opposition leader Micheál Martin, have expressed concern about the financial weakness of the mainstream media, conscious that a functioning democracy needs a healthy press, both print and broadcast.

Last week, Leo Varadkar got himself into a silly-season tangle for his reported off-the-cuff remarks at a lunch in New York. He apparently expressed some qualified understanding for Donald Trump’s criticisms of the US media. If Trump were to express a belief in fine weather or motherhood it is probably wise not to offer a public endorsement. He is bound to tweet something outrageous on an unrelated issue shortly afterwards and any endorsement of the Big Orange One, however innocent, is a hostage to fortune.

Varadkar’s remarks drew an indignant response from Leinster House political reporters and much editorial finger-wagging. Last Sunday’s papers were full of it and he had earlier received a solemn dressing-down from the National Union of Journalists and a Twitter-storm of abuse from its more sensitive members.

The Dáil was entertained to a stout defence of “investigative journalism” from some deputies who react with extreme hostility whenever the investigative light is shone in their own direction. Even allowing for the time of year and the heatwave, the reaction has been way over the top. So what did Varadkar say in New York to merit all of this criticism? The meeting was private but the leaked account reveals only that he expressed understanding of Trump’s dislike of his media detractors. That’s it.

The Taoiseach is on the record as deploring the scarcity of investigative reporting and has praised some specific examples of RTÉ’s work in the health sector. The paucity of investigative journalism in both print and broadcast media in Ireland is due principally to its cost. RTÉ’s Prime Time Investigates series has broken some important stories but it costs a fortune – teams of people can be tied up for months on a single item. RTÉ enjoys around €180m per annum in licence fee income but no other Irish media organisation is so lucky.

As media revenues have declined, the response has been to squeeze editorial budgets, employ fewer (or cheaper) journalists and forget about lengthy investigations that yield valuable but infrequent stories. Minimising cost-per-story is what happens when the money gets tight.

It was revealed in last weekend’s Irish edition of The Sunday Times that 130 journalists are accredited to Leinster House. There are 158 TDs, so this is close to one journalist per deputy. If you have wondered why there is such intense coverage of every rumour and piece of tittle-tattle coming from Dáil Éireann, the saturation of Kildare Street with journalists is the reason. The reporters are provided with facilities there and the location is in central Dublin, so no travelling or subsistence costs.

A daily diet of quasi-news is guaranteed, including staged performances from the press people at nearby departments and outbursts of controlled indignation from opposition deputies on the plinth fronting on Kildare Street. A radio and TV staple is the 30-second clip from some Dáil committee, recorded at public expense and provided free to the broadcasters.

Sending a team of reporters off for a week or two to nail a story of far greater importance outside Dublin, can’t compete in terms of in cost per story with the regular breathless updates from “our political staff”, so the more important stories simply do not get covered.

There must be scope here for a sensible deal between the politicians and the press. There are several European countries where newspapers enjoy a preferential (in some cases zero) rate of VAT, and the RTÉ licence fee will have to be reformed and perhaps a better share offered to RTÉ’s competitors. But the 130 reporters accredited in Kildare Street is farcical. Any offer from the politicians should be conditional on charging the media for facilities provided, which should result in a reduced allocation to what is mostly the reporting of court gossip.