Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Many of the broadcasters are not looking for a handout but rather a level playing field in advertising. Their advertising pool has been shrunk because a State-subsidised entity is hoovering up revenue in many cases in a very competitive advertising environment. That has been put on the table as being unfair.

With regard to salaries, if Irish Water or the HSE had to get a technological guru in the morning from an external source because the expertise is not in Ireland but the salary was not available to the Committee of Public Accounts, the Oireachtas or the Minister, a head would roll. It is an absolute scandal that there is a public service entity that is refusing to disclose what it pays staff members. If the Houses of the Oireachtas ran its business like that, one would not be able to get here through the protests outside. There is an absolute unfairness about this. It is a double standard as these are the same people who sit in judgment of the semi-State companies, the Houses of the Oireachtas and everybody else. That is grossly unfair.