Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We will commence session No. 3 of today's hearings with Mr. Ed Mulhall, former head of news and current affairs, and Mr. Paul Mulligan, head of commercial operations at RTE. We are focusing on the role of the media during the property boom in the lead-in to the banking crisis in the period 2002 to 2007. Our next session will look at any changes in approach after the crisis. I welcome Mr. Ed Mulhall and Mr. Paul Mulligan, who are specifically invited to discuss RTE's editorial policy on the economy and the property boom, and separately RTE's business model and sources of revenue, including that from the real estate sector, from 2002 to 2007.

Mr. Ed Mulhall is a Trinity College Dublin politics and economics graduate. He joined RTE as a radio producer in features and current affairs in 1979. He was appointed assistant head of features and current affairs in 1985. He became a television producer in 1998 before moving to RTE News as a programme editor for the launch of "Six One News". He became managing editor of television news in 1994, director of news in 1997 and managing director of news and current affairs in 2002. Mr. Mulhall had a lead role in all the general election coverage since 1981 and was a producer and executive producer on a number of documentaries. He retired from RTE in March 2012.

Mr. Paul Mulligan has been head of operations of RTE television since 2009. From 2005 to 2009 he was head of operations, sales and marketing of RTE television and radio. He is chair of the Joint National Listenership Research, JNLR, data implementation group and director of the Advertising Standards Authority. Mr. Mulligan holds an MA in economics from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.

Before I begin I wish to advise the witnesses that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. If they are directed by the Chairman to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and, as they have been informed previously, the committee is asking witnesses to refrain from discussing named individuals in this phase of the inquiry.

Members are reminded of the long-standing ruling of the Chair to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Mr. Mulhall and Mr. Mulligan are both very welcome before the inquiry. In their own choice of sequence, they should commence with their opening statements.