Mr. Noel Curran:

Deputy Ann Phelan has left, so we will hold her question.

With regard to the comments made by Deputy Tom Fleming, we have consulted other broadcasters and the person responsible for the guidelines at the BBC. We undertook consultation in terms of best practice. Sometimes, as we saw at the BBC, other companies get into difficulties with regard to editorial issues. We should not necessary look at everyone as ideal. We should try to get a range of views and inputs so that it is not narrow.

It is important to clarify the issue concerning resignation. I assume the Deputy meant the previous managing director of news, who was not sacked and has had that clarified in newspapers; he took early retirement. He is one of the people I respect most out of all of the people I have ever worked with. He will not be in some wilderness where he will find it hard to find employment. He is incredibly busy, as one would expect of someone with his range of talents. With regard to the specific question about me, I have answered it on the previous two occasions I was here. It is common knowledge that I was prepared to take accountability. In a leadership position, one must take accountability and show responsibility and leadership. It is not an issue in terms of how we handle this; it is more a question of how the organisation has come through it. Has the organisation come through the most difficult editorial crisis in its history? It is a credit to the organisation that it has. That is not to say we will not make mistakes again; we will. We cannot get into the territory of investigative journalism and not make mistakes. We are trying to minimise the mistakes.

The Minister has made it clear that he does not see the licence fee increasing and, ultimately, it is his call. We have been arguing that a whole range of money is lost to the licence fee through evasion, the sound and vision fund, collection fees, the funding of RTE, the funding of TG4, the programming we provide for TG4 and a range of other items. What we have said is that there is an opportunity to look at overall funding levels if there will be an increase in public funding through some mechanism.

I disagree with the point that RTE needs to operate more as a commercial concern. If we are receiving public funding, people must see what is different about us. That does not mean we do not need to maximise commercial revenues.

Moving RTE more into the sphere of being a commercial broadcaster separates its identity from the other commercial broadcasters. It undermines the case for public funding and means that RTE will no longer be able to afford the range of programmes. RTE invests in drama and young people's programming and does 60 hours of live news and current affairs every week. We invest in a whole range of programmes in which our competitors do not, including Irish language, performing groups, etc. If we abandon that and chase a commercial revenue, then why do we have RTE? Why do we have public funding of a broadcaster? We are still dual funded and we need, particularly now, to maximise the commercial revenues but RTE needs to have a separate public service identity.

The Deputy's final point is always a difficult one. President Obama earns $400,000 per year, or $500,000 when other allowances are included. I do not know that any of our people are earning three times that. This question surfaces all the time. Many people in the Irish semi-State sector earn more than that. In the UK, 9,000 people in the public sector earn more than the British Prime Minister - 320 work in local councils and hundreds of them work in the NHS. These comparisons are difficult and they are not necessarily comparing apples with apples but I understand that people have looked at the fees we were paying and have had a concern. I say again that we have tried to address that. I believe we have addressed it a more wide-ranging way than other areas where people have concerns. The process is not complete yet.