Mr. Kevin Bakhurst:

If the Deputy does not, Deirdre McCarthy is around the Dáil all the time and he should contact her. We welcome contact from political parties and Government. It is a useful dialogue to have. We will consider all the points they make and probably disagree with most of them. Sometimes a valid point is made and we should respond to it, be it from any of the political parties, pressure groups or other voices. We are a public service broadcaster and Members should have a dialogue with us. We will consider the points made. Deirdre McCarthy spends a lot of her time having these conversations. She will sometimes talk to me about conversations she has had and whether we need to do anything about them. It is important, but it is also important for people to know that a telephone call does not mean we adhere to it, as the Deputy put it. We will consider it. Ms McCarthy may wish to say more about that in a second.

On foreign coverage, the Deputy is right. A range of broadcasts is now available here. There are a whole lot of different countries which are covered in different ways and we do not have the resources to cover them all. I would love to do as much as some of the bigger broadcasters can afford to do. There are programmes on RTE Radio, in particular, in which we cover things which may go under the radar in terms of day to day news coverage. We have tried to focus on what has been going on in countries such as Russia where there have been political assassinations recently. Could we do more? Yes. Would we like to do more? Yes. However, we are not sure we have the resources to do it. One of the ways of doing it is to do it in radio programmes. This is a cheaper way of doing it and of getting other voices on. It is good that a range of other companies is available and doing some of this as well. There is a range of coverage available to people.