Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As I said, I gave that commitment. I believe that meeting will happen on 16 November. I absolutely appreciate community radio. LMFM and the other station, Northern Sound, in Carrickmacross, are the stations one listens to. I will address a meeting of Craol, the community radio group, this Friday, so I very much appreciate the value of local and community radio.

The BAI provided €750,000 for community radio in recognition of their value. Community radio is fundamental to our local communities, especially those in rural Ireland. Turning on the local radio station was the first thing we did in the morning. It is the only one on which we rely. There have been 30 centrally co-ordinated campaigns on Covid since March. More than half of those have included local print and almost all included local radio. I intend to ask for an analysis of the advertising spread by Government in terms of Covid-related media messaging to allow us to understand more about the spread and breadth of Government advertising and how it can feed into radio.

The Deputy has given me a heads up on the questions they will be asking at that meeting on 16 November and I look forward to engaging with them.