Mr. Frank Mulrennan:

To deal with Senator Davitt's questions first, the reality in the midlands in particular has been one of casualties in terms of titles. In Mullingar, we have a very fine competitor in the Topic group. The owner will not mind me saying we have agreed that we are not really each other's competitors any more but are both in the survival business.

We are both challenged by the decline in advertising and circulation. Journalists and editors bring it out each week. It is hammer and tongs between both papers, but it is a survival business for both.

I see that Deputy Shane Cassells is in the Visitors' Gallery. There is a very fine newspaper going to bed at the moment called Forum. It is a free newspaper in the Dunshaughlin, Ratoath and Ashbourne areas. We are having serious misgivings over the continued publication of our free newspaper there. I have already alerted the editor and the sales people involved. We cannot continue with a loss-making newspaper, so if this sale does not go ahead I would say to Senator Davitt that the huge amount of work that we as a collective - I am talking about the 98 great people in our company - have done, will have been eroded. Unfortunately - and I say this with due regard to my colleagues - there will be a return to the redundancies that we had to do in 2015.

Many years ago, Séamus Dooley and I worked together in national papers. I was a member of the NUJ myself for 18 years. In our own company we got full co-operation from journalists, sales people and right across the board in 2012 and in 2015. That is because I present to them regularly. There is never any shortage of information in our company and they know how difficult it is.

Senator O'Reilly will know from attending business and sports awards where I speak, that I steal a little bit from Carlsberg. I say that the Anglo-Celt is probably the best local newspaper in the country. I thank the Senator for his comments about it. I can confirm that the Anglo-Celtwill continue to be published from Station House. Under the sale transaction with INM, the newspaper will effectively become a tenant of Station House when it is sold. I am not used to divulging commercially sensitive information because we are a small company. We run our own gig with all due respects, but I have told the committee that Station House is being sold to pay a bridging loan. I can be no more honest than that.

The editor of the Anglo-Celt, Linda O'Reilly, is busily putting her paper to bed. As regards editorial control, in the ten years I have worked with Linda, I have never interfered or dictated what should be in the Anglo-Celt. Senator O'Reilly knows the reason why. I do not live in Cavan and, truth be told, I do not really know the Cavan issues. I might be a former journalist, but the business of running that newspaper editorially is that of the editor.

As regards jobs in the Anglo-Celt, the committee has heard the guarantees. There are 14 employees in the Anglo-Celt, which are all either involved in news generation in our newsroom - and we have terrific journalists there - or in advertising sales. As a former journalist I used to think that was the commercial, crass side of the business, but without advertising sales there would be no business.

To take Deputy Eamon Ryan's question, Dublin is a small city and Ireland is a small country. We went through a painful redundancy process in 2015, which was particularly painful for those colleagues who lost their jobs. I dealt with each of those individually because I genuinely care about the jobs of the people who are leaving and of those who are staying in our company. Yes, we were approached by INM but it did not take a genius to realise that even though Celtic Media is a very well run company, we are in an industry which is seriously challenged. An approach was made and it was dealt with very efficiently. Robert Pitt is a gentleman to deal with and what more can I say.