Mr. Kevin Bakhurst:

I have been very involved in the regional question and it is a core part of what we do in news. The partnership with the institutes of technology is progressing very well. It is complicated and we are considering five particular regional offices with regard to partnership. They are progressing at different speeds because we must consider each location individually with regard to lease arrangements and how quickly we can move out of premises and into the institutes of technology. The first we hope to deliver will be Dundalk IT and we hope this will happen in the coming months. The partnership there is progressing extremely well. An aspect of the partnership in Dundalk in which we are particularly interested is its unique set of premises with regard to conferences. In recent days we have managed to deliver a major European conference to Dundalk in 2015 which will bring 300 delegates from 37 broadcasters throughout Europe. This is what we will deliver as part of the arrangement. The plans to move in are progressing quickly. The next two after Dundalk will be Waterford and Athlone. We must sort out the details and we hope to be in all three by the end of the year. For different reasons Sligo and Galway are trickier in terms of physically moving but we are still pursuing other elements of partnership because all of the institutes of technology are interested in working with us on various projects. They are keen to be involved with RTE in various partnership arrangements. It is moving ahead. Overall restructuring in the regions is saving us a substantial amount of money each year in running costs. The partnership has enabled us to maintain our presence in the regions. Before I came into this job one of the options on the table was to pull out of the regions and we have managed to ensure we can keep our correspondents and teams there which I felt was crucial for our credibility as an organisation.