Mr. John Purcell:

With regard to standards and a preparedness to up the game, we want to achieve better and more programming of the type mentioned by the Deputy. It is specialist programming. We receive absolutely no funding other than the negligible amount we can receive from the Sound and Vision scheme. Many of the types of programming are just not commercially viable.

Somebody else asked if there have been job losses and the impact of them. There have been job losses and the level of multitasking in a station like KCLR is phenomenal. I use this forum to pay tribute to the work force of 1,500 people providing the service, as the flexibility is unbelievable. A person could be presenting a programme before doing technical operations work or commercial production and helping with an outside broadcast. That may happen in one day. Deputy Harrington asked who owns the stations and that information is publicly available. We will happily gather it and provide it for the committee. Deputy O'Mahony inquired about the levy and the money involved. There are stations of varying size but with a medium radio station, the sum involved would be approximately €30,000 or €40,000, which equates to one job.

Anonymous texting can be a difficulty but many stations have rigorous policies on it. In our station we constantly keep texts under review and we have the facility to block certain texts. Stations may have a policy of not accepting texts that have the origin blocked. The principle is that one would always know who is making the comment and that a person can be contacted.