Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. I am not a member of the committee, but I welcome the opportunity to ask questions. I recognise that RTÉ has to deal with its financial difficulties and I support it in relation to the need for licence reform sooner rather than later.

My questions mainly relate to Lyric FM and the proposals to move the service to Dublin and Cork. I welcome the fact that RTÉ is going to have detailed discussions with the staff on Friday. I also welcome Ms Forbes's indication that she would consider the request of the Minister to defer the decision on the transfer of Lyric. Could she confirm that, although I know she has not had a chance to look at it yet?

In listening to the responses, she referred to part of the reason for moving Lyric being excess capacity in Dublin and Cork. Would it not be better to deal with the excess capacity in Dublin and Cork rather than transfer Lyric from Limerick? I wish to reiterate the points around regional balance, and the hugely important cultural role that Lyric FM plays in the Limerick area and in the mid-west in general.

I know the witnesses were not able to specify the exact savings but there was certainly an implication - it might have been on a radio interview rather than here today - that part of that might be redundancies. For people who cannot afford to move their families to more expensive accommodation, not to mention all the other elements of moving a family from Limerick, I would not describe this as voluntary redundancy but as forced redundancy. I ask that RTÉ do take that into consideration because there are many people who are working in Lyric in Limerick who are living in Limerick, have children going to school there and so on.

Finally, I wish to ask RTÉ about the offer from University of Limerick. Ms Forbes mentioned using facilities with higher educational institutions in other parts of the country. I know there was a response to the effect that this was not suitable but I ask RTÉ to look at it again as a possibility. The institutions might be able to reach some kind of compromise with RTÉ to facilitate its needs in Limerick. The witnesses have heard today that across the parties, we feel very strongly that Lyric FM is really important to Limerick. It is obviously important to its listeners all over the country but it is also important to Limerick and the region.