Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is a fair observation and it is reasonable to say that we do not see many of the faces of the new communities and minorities in Irish society represented in RTE. If the station is to be truly reflective of Irish society, we would want to see the situation improve. I take the point made by RTE that it complies with equality legislation and tries to recruit people based on merit. What springs to mind is the issue of gender quotas, although one wants to improve gender balance on the other hand, one wants to recruit on the basis of merit. That is a reasonable response. It is positive that the petitioner has said that since the petition was submitted and the committee has engaged with RTE, some improvement has been detected. RTE seems to be saying that it will bear in mind the concerns of the petitioner and we could ask it to make a little extra effort and reach out more to the new communities by advertising posts in some of the newspapers that the new communities read, such as Metro or the Polish newspaper. People in the new communities might not be aware of the post beings advertised and could be made aware of the jobs if they were advertised in the media they read.

I hope that RTE will bear in mind the general consideration.