Ms Triona Quill:

I thank the Senator. As I said, we are preparing a business case and engaging with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Our intention, if at all possible, is to start the recruitment of staff even before the legislation is enacted in order that the media commission can come up to speed as quickly as possible once it comes into force. We recognise the urgency of getting the commission up and running, and effective, at as early a date as possible. We will do all we can to progress that.

On the designation of services, we have tried to keep as much of an open door as possible with stakeholders and to assist if people are confused in any way. It is important to say that it will be up to the media commission to designate the specific services. Video-sharing platforms will automatically come within the scope of the legislation. Any other services are potentially subject to designation but will not automatically be designated. I see this as probably being a gradual process. I expect that the media commission will focus first on video-sharing platforms and deciding who is in scope in that regard before looking, over time, at other services and taking the risk-based approach I mentioned. It is something that will unfold over a period.

In regard to the guidance from the European Commission, it will be set out in the legislation that the media commission will have regard to that guidance in respect of the relevant aspects. The Commission's guidance is not in any way being ignored; the media commission must have regard to it.

On the question of the nature of the person who takes on the job, there were a number of reasons that we considered a multi-person commission, with an executive chairperson and three commissioners reporting to him or her, and colleagues and peers with each other, was the most appropriate framework. We recognise, first of all, that media are converging and often a single entity can have both on-demand and broadcasting services within its remit. It is important to have a single regulator looking at all of that. Similarly, there might be a video-sharing platform that also has an on-demand service. It is our view that this model, whereby commissioners will have functions delegated to them but will also act as a college in taking collective decisions on, for example, sanctions that are to be put in place, provides a good framework for ensuring that there is both clarity of purpose and also a level of support for the commissioners within the overall regulator. That was part of our thinking in designing the framework.