Mr. Kevin Bakhurst:

I thank the Deputy. I think he is right that perception is important, whether that is six programmes in a row on "Claire Byrne Live" or whether it is general perception about RTE, as I have discussed with various members of Fianna Fáil. I have also had to deal with this with other parties along the way because of various competing perceptions around the coverage of the water protests over the last year. There was a perception from the Government that we were actively encouraging the water protests, there was a perception from the water protesters that we were a voice piece of the State, neither of which are true. However, there are these perceptions and it is important that we tackle them and explore them to see if there is any grain of truth in the issues involved. I believe open dialogue is one way of dealing with that. I encourage people, if there are those perceptions, to bring them to us, to bring them to Ms McCarthy or me, and we can discuss them. If there is a grain of truth in any of them we will try to address them. Perception is important for RTE and perception of fairness is very important. We put a heavy emphasis on the audience's perception of RTE news and current affairs, as the Chairman mentioned earlier. We monitor the level of trust very carefully. It is the same with perception with the political parties and, crucially, with our audience and the licence fee payers.

The phrase "groupthink" has been raised several times by Deputy Timmy Dooley and other members of the committee. This was an accusation that was made a few years ago around the various editorial issues. I do not see it. There is no groupthink in RTE. There is a healthy and robust debate and I have experienced it myself sometimes when I attend current affairs meetings where I sometimes feel I am on the programme when there is a debate about coverage and what we should and should not be doing. There is even a debate sometimes between current affairs and news about what we are doing on coverage so the idea that there is groupthink or one way of thinking about any area of coverage or any way that we cover a story is wrong. One of the things that I try to encourage is robust debate at editorial meetings about any issues of the day because I think everyone should have a voice and it is the only way in the end that there is a proper discussion if people are not afraid to discuss it and raise questions over it. There is a real danger if people are afraid to do that. I would like to try to dispel that and I will carry on trying to dispel it for as long as I can.

Deputy Timmy Dooley asked about the mechanism of how programmes are balanced on a daily basis.