Mr. David Nally:

No, that is not the case. While the most important thing is to get the journalism right and communicate the issues well to the viewer, we do accept and take seriously that it is also part of our function to be fair to all of the political parties over time. It is not easy because there are a lot of different considerations, but in current affairs we keep a very close eye on it. If one looks at it from the perspective of any one political party, one will always feel aggrieved not to have been on that particular programme or that week. However, standing back and looking at it objectively and impartially, as we do, I am very happy that the share-out of appearances on current affairs programmes is very fair. I would not be happy if this was not the case.

We keep tabs on this and, since the start of 2014, looking at the two programmes I am responsible for - "Prime Time" and "Claire Byrne Live" - the share-out reflects that the Government would have had close to half, in fact a bit less than half of all the appearances, while the Opposition had a bit more than half. Within the Opposition, Fianna Fáil has had more appearances than any other party, and Sinn Féin has had the second most appearances. The difference between them is significant but not excessive. There has also been good representation for Independents and the smaller parties. Over time, any fair-minded person would say that is a reasonable track record. I can accept that on any given programme or in any given month, a party may have a legitimate view that it ought to have been on but the fair thing is to look at it over time if we are talking about bias. I can assure the Deputy that, over time, there is no evidence of bias at all in the appearances on RTE current affairs programmes.