Ms Moya Doherty:

I thank Deputy Moynihan. I can easily answer the Deputy's first question. I am not nor have I ever been a member of a political party.

Sometimes it is easy to overlook what RTE does.

The Deputy asked about value for money. There are always ways to generate new efficiencies. RTE has had a number of independent reports done and the most recent one, the NewERA report, will be published soon. RTE has had to cut its costs dramatically over the past four or five years. It has reduced its costs by 30% and has reduced its staff levels by 500 and it is now down to 1,800 staff. Its operating costs have been reduced by €130 million.

As an independent broadcaster, I have experience of making programmes on tight budgets. I also have experience of being within RTE and making programmes, albeit at a very different time. The money being spent on content now in RTE is being very tightly spent. It is managing it well from what I have seen and from what has been delivered to me, to date, since I went in there.

The rural constituent comes up regularly. I asked the management if it had any numbers on hours of broadcast for rural programming. It is quite difficult to get those statistics because within any news bulletin, one could have 30% or 40% from the regions or one might have 10%. However, RTE has a very high regional profile and we must not forget that RTE, through its licence fee and the Irish people, funds Raidió na Gaeltachta which delivers enormously to rural communities. What RTE has done with the ploughing championships has been enormous as has what it has done with the Rose of Tralee, the young scientist competition and the all-Ireland school choir competition.

There is always room for improvement in everything. I hope that every day I, in my role as chair, and the RTE board will ask those questions and that we will, I hope, get the answers that satisfy us. On the current situation, RTE has had a very painful history, both for it and the Irish people. It has put an entire system in place. When my new board is in place, we will see the head of news and current affairs and we will, as a board, ask the questions the Deputy asked but from the answers I have received already from management in RTE, there are strong editorial markers and pillars in place to ensure those mistakes do not occur again.

If one looks at the programming RTE delivered prior to Christmas, "Inside Bungalow 3" made probably the most harrowing viewing I have ever seen as a viewer. That programme, on behalf of RTE and the Irish people, secured a huge audience of 690,000 people, so there is much that is good within RTE. It does very good work across news and current affairs. "The Late Late Toy Show" had an audience of more than 1 million. That audience spread is a national spread.