Mr. Tim Collins:

That is a good point raised by the Chairman. In response to the economic downturn in 2008, our sector became highly efficient. We hollowed out anything that did not have to do with on-air activities. We protected our on-air activities and, by and large, kept the same number of news reporters, presenters and producers. We hollowed out management, support staff and so on and reduced part-timers, unfortunately, to a great degree. What we have now are stations which are highly efficient.

In my station, we have 20 full-time staff who work a 24-7 roster. We have few enough part-timers contributing to our schedule because our full-timers now work weekends and nights. Generally speaking, we do not have a layer of management. I am the manager in my station. Two weeks ago I was up on top of a mountain trying to fix a transmitter with an engineer on the end of the phone telling me what to do. Everybody does everything in the station. It is quite a unique business in that regard because of the commitment of our staff to the business. They have done this in an uncomplaining way where we have had to make significant cuts and changes to the way people work. There are some groups with two or three radio stations which have made efficiencies too. Most of our businesses are stand-alone businesses which require a chief executive and the various different supports, however.

There is a clear commitment in the programme for Government to carry out a review of the funding of public and independent broadcasters. We believe it is probably not necessary to do that because there is clarity on where the funding is. Both sectors are under pressure but one sector, the independent broadcaster, is totally underfunded. The other commitment in the programme for Government to introduce a household broadcasting charge should be brought forward and prioritised. The legislation required to do that should revisit the 2009 Broadcasting Act and examine to limit the commercial mandate of RTE, as well as putting a constraint on RTE opening up new services. We have a significant concern that RTE, because of its mandate to seek out every little scrap of commercial revenue, is already threading in areas where we are operating and will do more so over the next few years. That is a significant concern to us. In the context of that legislation, we would like an independent broadcasting fund.

I know it is not in the committee's power to get the legislation in place but it has a powerful voice. We believe the Minister is for moving. We have had positive interaction with him and the Department.