Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted that the witnesses are here to address the committee. I will start with Mr. Purcell. I do not have any questions. I just want to lend my support and to reiterate the importance of local radio stations. In Cork, we are really lucky to have C103, 96FM and RedFM. Taking a show like "Cork Today" as an example, which is broadcast on C103, the service and information it has provided in the pandemic has demonstrated its importance more than anything else. Prior to that we had the likes of Storm Ophelia where we were all pretty much locked behind closed doors as well or the beast from the east weather event.

The support and information that station gave to the public, as well as the comfort that it was, was significant. I echo the witnesses' calls. They have made a couple of simple requests regarding the reintroduction of the waiver of the levy and the expansion of the sound and vision scheme, something that I would certainly support and urge the Minister to listen to the witnesses about.

On the issue of regional newspapers, which I might address to Mr. Dooley since he mentioned it in his address, again they provide a really important service. In regions such as west Cork, some local newspapers are read by some people from back to front and front to back again. They depend on the distribution of those newspapers in the local shop and that option is not there under lockdown. One can imagine that the revenue for these newspapers is falling. The advertising revenue is falling because businesses are struggling or relying on supports. One challenge that I am sure they are facing, because the normal place to distribute the paper would be in the shop where people would pick it up and buy it, is that they are trying to move to providing online services. It is very difficult, however, for these regional papers to compete with the other online offerings. Are there any ideas or creative ways to address that?

I will follow up on my question to Mr. Lynch. I am disappointed that Ms Dee Forbes is not here. She is a fellow west Cork person, from Drimoleague where my father is from. I hope she gets better soon. I commend RTÉ on the service that it has provided in general, and especially over the past months during the pandemic. I assume the figures for bulletins providing public health updates are through the roof. I would compare a public service broadcaster such as RTÉ to public transport. We need to invest in it. It does not necessarily always have to be about profit-making and huge revenue. Obviously revenue has to be maintained, but the State has to protect the public service broadcaster, while keeping the balance of independence.

Mr. Lynch mentioned in his statement that the licence fee process is broken. Will he elaborate on what alternatives there might be? The BBC is talking about changing its model and moving to something closer to the Swedish model. It is obviously having significant issues competing with the huge streaming services such as Netflix and is trying to find ways around it. I understand that even the BBC is having difficulty and it is a huge corporation. What do we do to combat that? Most speakers have mentioned "Normal People" and its success. Is that what we need to do? We have creativity, skill and talent. Do we need to invest in our own productions that we can export and earn income from? We can do just as well as the BBC on natural history, for example. Should we do more of that?

We have about a minute left. The first question is about the regional papers possibly going online and the second-----