Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for attending today's meeting. I and most people would agree with the vision as outlined by Mr. Curran on behalf of RTE. Visions are beautiful things in that they do not have constraints. However, strategies and plans do. I count myself among the 71% of people who believe that in general RTE does a quality job and that this country and its people would be the worse off without that quality public service broadcasting provided by RTE. I acknowledge that RTE has and continues to try to streamline operations and maximise the return and investment by taxpayers in the organisation.

I would like to raise a couple of specific issues. It is stated on page 5 of the submission that competition is the major obstacle facing public service broadcasting over the next 20 years. It was also stated that this increased competition would be great for Irish audiences and the Irish creative economy if it included new Irish programming content but that it does not. The reality is that it does not and this is sucking revenue out of the country. Is there an implicit expectation in this regard that Government should introduce some form of protectionism or special support measures for Irish produced programming over and above that which is currently produced? I am unsure as to the intent of the statement on page 5 of the submission. I am also unsure of the expectation of the witnesses from the committee and the Government in that regard.

I note that RTE now sees Raidió na Gaeltachta as a core service rather than, as previously implied, a complementary service. I welcome that. However, I would like to know the change of management thinking in this regard. In particular, how will RTE ensure that the necessary staff and resources will be made available to enable Raidió na Gaeltachta to fulfil its remit as a core service? I would welcome if the witnesses could advise the committee on RTE's recently drafted Irish language policy, including how it is to be implemented and if and when a person will be engaged to oversee its implementation.

In regard to the recent controversy around the defamation issue, there are two issues of concern to me. The first is the specific incident itself. I received the documentation in this regard from Mr. Kennedy, for which I thank him. I tried to read it last night. It is not easy reading. It would in my view induce nosebleeds in most people. I accept the point made that as legislators we sometimes ask questions of organisations which we should be asking of ourselves because we are the ones who introduce and enact legislation. However, there is another aspect to this, which relates to a frame of thinking. My concern is in regard to how easily RTE rolled over during the homophobic defamation incident and what chance it would have if, for example, the Government tried to insist on its point of view being put across unfairly to the population. It is not the legislation but the frame of mind in that regard that is important in the context of accepting that we as legislators must ensure the legislation is correct.

In that corporate frame of mind, how will Mr. Curran resist potentially much stronger influence or perhaps intimidation, when he rolled over so easily during that episode?