Mr. Paul Farrell:

I will respond on the public sector broadcasting issue and then ask Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin to comment on the licence fee. Regarding our submission and public service broadcasting, this issue comes back to the definition. We receive no funding for our output, although we produce eight hours of live content each day from our studios in Ballymount. Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin mentioned some of our output. I asked Celine McGillycuddy, executive producer on "Ireland AM" and several of our daytime shows, what we have covered in the last ten days. I have a list here of what she shared with me which is two pages long. It includes charities, artists, writers, sportspeople, directors and other creative people who have benefited from being on one of our shows.

Regarding feedback, one of our people visited Dogs Trust Ireland last week when the charity was struggling with the number of dogs it had at Christmas. Every dog had found a home by the end of the day. We do that every day. We do not get or seek credit for it because that is public service broadcasting. As Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin also noted, we were in County Sligo - I believe it was last Friday - promoting the planting of 50,000 trees on a farm. We need greater clarity on what public service broadcasting is and how it should be funded. I am not saying we are the only people doing what I described, because the local radio stations and newspapers also do it. The monolithic model of funding is preventing a fair understanding of the best value, return and distribution of that content. That is what I am passionate about and Mr. Esslemont also addressed that in his submission. I ask Ms Ní Chaoindealbháin to address the licence fee model and how we see that.