Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To follow on from Senator Cassells, this is about sketching out the media landscape in Ireland and where the witnesses see it going. If State funding is not made available over the next decade, how many national print titles and local print titles will continue to exist? As most of the print titles shift online, they operate behind a paywall and different media outlets have operated in different ways. What is the extent to which the witnesses believe this business model will be sustainable and people will be able to continue to pay for their news behind a paywall?

The second challenge of which I am always conscious in this era is that we have been very lucky with the media here. Trusted news sources have been particularly good during this difficult period. While trusted news sources move behind a paywall, we can get all sorts of nonsense for free. How will we continue to convince people that paying for news makes sense?