Ms Dee Forbes:

A lot of the programming on Lyric FM comes out of Limerick, Cork and Dublin. Lyric is already served by three locations. That happens right now. While the majority comes out of Limerick, other programming comes out of Dublin and Cork. As we said, these are difficult choices. We have an awful lot less revenue than we had a number of years ago. We are operating at deficits, which we have been asked to stop doing. We cannot do everything, as we have done. Hence, the most important thing in all of this was to make sure that we could maintain a service. The proposal on the table right now is that that service can be maintained by splitting it between Dublin and Cork. Since we have come in here, something has been said in the Dáil so we have to review this in light of all that.

In terms of the overall savings, I do not want to appear evasive but there are a number of factors at play that depend on the outcome of consultation with staff. That is why I do not want to get into a specific number because that number is variable depending on what will happen. I hope it is sufficient to say to Deputy Quinlivan that the saving would have to be significant for us to consider it. The level of financial crisis we are in requires us to take a number of decisions that collectively will create a large number. Sometimes that means taking lots of €0.5 millions or €400,000s from various places to come up with an overall number. That is the place we are in. There is no silver bullet whereby we can say that by stopping this, we can achieve the savings. It is a complex mix of a number of things. As I said, ultimately, we want to protect the service for the audience.