Mr. Pierce O'Reilly:

We are in negotiations with the GAA. Our structure is based on the GAA structure. We have a three person crew in every county covering the stories and they see the value in it when we cover a local GAA match or a local festival. In bringing together those elements from 32 counties, Irish TV is the national platform. We are a community television channel run on a commercial basis. If we came in saying that we wanted support to set it up, the sum would amount to twice as much. The jigsaw is so fragmented. Irish TV is trying to take all of the elements of the creative sector, bring them together and put the structure in place so there will be no duplication within the sector. Having spoken to Dr. Eddie Brennan, I can see many ways we can work together. We have a very structured system for planning. We have regional editors in the four provinces and crews in each county. They report to regional editors and the editors meet on a weekly basis to decide the topics of interest.

I hope the takeover will take place. Irish TV is a family-run business set up by myself and my wife at our kitchen table out of frustration at how we would survive. We had no commissions for the year and we decided to do something to benefit ourselves and to benefit the industry. We could cover our house with lovely letters thanking us for our submissions, telling us that we had been unsuccessful on that occasion and that the next commissioning round would be in six months. I had a staff of three people and I was going to go into the office to tell them we had no work but instead I told them we were going to launch a television platform. We did not know if it would work but we tried something to keep ourselves and the staff in the industry. Everybody has bought into it and sees the value of it. Three people are employed in Laois, Carlow, Wicklow and Kerry. They are covering community stories and getting calls from Australia and America from people who saw them on television. That is benefiting the community. There was a fear element in getting the local butcher to advertise on the Carlow programme but he now knows that the people of Carlow or Kilkenny will be watching a half-hour programme so it is of value to him to advertise on that. That can be replicated.

Some 30% of our revenue last year came from outside Ireland and this year we are hoping that 50% of revenue will come from outside Ireland. We will be contributing to the State coffers, which is very important.