Mr. Gerry O'Regan:

I am of the view that there is time for journalists to appraise, assess, dismiss, discount or amplify material they have received from PR professionals. Another aspect of the backdrop to all of this is the fact that the Republic of Ireland is one of the most competitive media arenas on the planet. We import a great deal of media material from the UK via the BBC, various satellite television stations and different British radio stations and newspapers. Generally speaking, Irish newspapers have been pretty competitive for the past number of decades. They have been obliged to fight fairly hard to survive. If a newspaper is reproducing a large amount of PR material all the time, this will not prove to be good for it.