Ms Breda O'Keeffe:

It is difficult to compare the type of programme unless it is exactly the same. We have tried to do this. We have engaged with European broadcasters in benchmarking costs per hour. We have had a number of those and always get into difficulties in terms of how somebody accounts for something, the different methods of costing, etc. It can, therefore, be difficult to compare with our European counterparts. Drama is one area in which costs are similar. One might argue about the quality of drama and which is better or worse, but we have compared ourselves with the BBC. For example, "Eastenders" costs more than double what it costs to produce "Fair City", while "Casualty", another well known drama in the United Kingdom, costs between four and five times more. While they have different audiences, they are similar soap dramas. That is not necessarily a consistent factor across the board, but it is one comparison at which we have looked.

We have also benchmarked the resources we put into our programmes against those put in by our European counterparts, including the number of hours of research involved, editing and so on. Both RTE and the independent sector compare favourably with them. We show levels of efficiency that compare well. Another comparison in the context of value for money and efficiency involves head count. Is a 21% reduction enough? For example, the head count in Danmarks Radio and YLE in Finland is considerably higher than that for RTE. YLE had more than 3,000 staff at the end of 2011 and provides a similar level of service.

NRK, the Norwegian state broadcaster, had a headcount of over 3,500. When we look at our European broadcaster counterparts and the level of services they produce, as a public service broadcaster we compare favourably.

We were asked whether the 500 people who have left were mostly part- or full-time. While I do not have the figures to hand, the majority were full-time staff. Contractors are outside of that number, so the 500 were RTE staff. I do not have the numbers for the reduction in contractors but we reduced the cost of contract resources and supplementary resources by more than 25% in that period. Through rate cuts, in the same way that staff took pay cuts, our contractors took a similar level of cut and the use of our contract resources has been reduced.