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

On the issue of funding, can I say to the director general that I would be sceptical or wary about going down a road of seeking funding from particular areas or the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment? It is better for RTÉ to keep its editorial independence rather than go down the line whereby the Department funds programming. The job of RTÉ is to provide sceptical, critical, analytical storytelling and once there is funding for specific categories, or even areas of programming, or listening to any of us here saying that any Bill should get coverage, that is the ruin of our public service broadcasting. Mr. Williams should go to the Department and get a licence fee increase, as some of us on this committee have recommended, and then use the funding.

As the head of Met Éireann said, this is the biggest story to be told. It is the biggest ecological, social, economic and environmental story of our times. Surely Mr. Williams's journalistic skills help him to realise that and that this story must be told in increasingly difficult and interesting ways. Get the funding separately. If the funding is tied to the story, the story will not be told well.