Mr. Noel Curran:

I am not going to sit in a position of having a licence fee, which is a privileged position that carries responsibilities, and start pointing fingers around the place at everyone else. In terms of the debate around 2FM, the Chairman is correct in that 2FM sits within RTE and RTE receives public funding. 2FM has a range of restrictions that commercial radio does not have in terms of things like minutage. Under EU and Irish legislation, we are obliged to provide a wide range of programming and 74% of the Irish public in the BAI survey - not our survey - said they wanted RTE to have entertainment programmes. I have come across this argument for a very long time and I understand it and that things are difficult for everyone.