Mr. Michael O'Keeffe:

In addition, we have done some research on the public's perception of how the public service broadcasters, both RTE and TG4, are performing and delivering on their objectives as set out in the Act. We will release the results of this later this year. The results are generally favourable. As the committee will be aware, people always like criticising RTE. It is a national pastime at times. However, generally speaking, as to whether RTE delivers on what it is asked to do, the results are positive.

That is a message we are getting. We are required to report on how they are performing, and we were keen to get some more concrete research on that, and that has backed up the view that they are delivering.

On Brexit, we have been approached by several broadcasting companies which use the UK as a location to broadcast to the rest of Europe. Their concern is that if and when the UK leaves, they will no longer have the right to be carried on the service of the various European countries. They are considering other jurisdictions, and Ireland is one. We have been approached by different groups. That may not bring any great financial benefit because many of them are likely to base the majority of their workforce in the UK and their European licence would be based in this jurisdiction or somewhere else. It could bring a bureaucratic headache for us to process a range of licences which may not bring an economic benefit to Ireland. We are weighing up some of those issues. In general terms, our policy is that we should be permissive and welcome companies that want to locate in this jurisdiction. In the long term that may have benefits for production and other aspects and develop a greater production sector here. There are issues we are working through and we will bring a policy paper to the board in the next few months, having met several of these companies in recent months. It is on our agenda.