Fiach MacConghail (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for allowing me to jump the queue of speakers. I welcome all three witnesses and thank Mr. O'Kane for his opening statement. To put on the record, I am the director of the Abbey Theatre, which receives funding from the Arts Council. The Abbey Theatre sits on the Council of National Cultural Institutions and therefore I share a particular room with the director of the NCH. I say this for the sake of transparency and accountability; it does not mean that I am less qualified to ask any of these questions.

There are a couple of issues I would like to tease through in the document. This is a discussion on the general scheme of the Bill, so this committee has a role in formulating views or indeed ambiguities, which we present to the Minister. The Minister will then come in and respond to that before the legislation is drafted. As far as I can see, there is a complication. The complication is that both RTE and the NCH are mixed economy companies; they are both dependent on commercial income and on State subvention through the licence fee on the one hand and the Department on the other. There is a commercial relationship. It is clear in Mr. O'Kane's statement that the relationship is not entirely symbiotic; sometimes the two are mutually supportive of one another, particularly around the NSO, and often they are competitors. I am thinking in terms of being a promoter.

The committee must consider whether it is of value or of interest to advocate for the NSO or, as Mr. O'Kane suggests, all of RTE's performing groups, to be part of the legislation and also how that commercial relationship would be enshrined and might bind both organisations. I would like to hear Mr. O'Kane's comments on that because he is very clear that he wants to expand the scheme to include all performing groups, that he advocates a return to the previous convention whereby a senior staff member is nominated as a director of the NCH, and that he wants essentially to strengthen the contractual obligation that the NCH might have on RTE.