Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Getting David McRedmond as chief executive of An Post to increase TV licences is a fantastic example of poacher turned gamekeeper. That will not be easy. It has to be legislated for. It is hard to square the circle of keeping it the old way but the old way ain't working. I presume there is another short-term measure we must consider, for example, cable networks having a must-carry obligation for stations such as RTE. Flipping that, at some point they must pay because there is an inequity in areas where there could be an immediate return through a fairly easy legislative change. Similarly, the provision for the sale of land in RTE, which I have been arguing for because the land there is under-used and it is valuable land which is badly needed for housing. They are all short-term solutions, not structural changes. I was very glad to hear Mr. O'Keeffe's suggestion that the next round of reviewing the public service funding is considering the wider scope of how public service is evolving in the digital environment and if I am reading it aright, this would include the commercial broadcasters in some way.

Do we have figures for how much advertising companies in the digital market, such as facebook and Google, would get in the Irish market? Are there figures for what the international and domestic satellite providers gain here? This would give us an understanding of who the different players are. Digital advertising is a growing area. RTE's figures for it are approximately €16 million, 10% of its commercial revenue. What percentage is that of the overall digital advertising market? Are there ways of finding out what that market is?

If I recall rightly there was a consultative event in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham before the establishment of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland - Mr. O'Keeffe is long enough in the tooth to remember it. The event was innovative, bottom-up not just top table but a genuine communication between a variety of interests. Would it make sense for us to host, or to do so in conjunction with the BAI and the Department, a similar public event to open up this question? There are so many people with an interest in it, the public service broadcasters, the commercial TV companies, the newspaper industry, community radio and the content providers, the independent production sector, the advertising sector, satellite and cable providers. The committee could bring in one after the other but a public event like that event in the early 2000s, at a point when we had to seriously reconsider our public service broadcasting, would be better. We could host it in early spring and allow different people come and in a creative, facilitated way share different ideas and output. It is such a complex issue with so many players involved an innovative forum might be better than a series of presentations here. I would be interested to hear the Department and BAI's assessment of that. I have seen it work for broadband policy in the Department. If we facilitate it cleverly it is the best way of getting different views on a complex situation. That might assist the BAI's funding review and allow us to carry out the review the Minister commissioned us to do.