Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. To return to the issue of the licence fee, commitments were made in 2019 by the then Minister with responsibility for communications to examine the device-based model, which I am under the impression RTÉ would support. Has there been any significant communication or development between RTÉ and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications on that issue, and will the witnesses give an update on it? We are not the only country that is struggling with public funding through a device-based model. In the UK, there has been a great deal of unhappiness since March at the fact the BBC did not manage to adopt a more progressive funding model.

One of the things that was pointed out during that back and forth was that the Government had a concern that due to a failure to roll out broadband, a device-based model of funding for the licence fee would disenfranchise a certain section of the population. A device-based licence fee would be based on access to broadband, with regard to the public broadcasting aspect of it. I am interested in Ms Forbes's thoughts on that. Is a device-based model for the licence fee directly linked to or dependent on our roll-out of broadband?

My second question is around RTÉ Player. It is probably not news to RTÉ to say that sometimes there is criticism of RTÉ Player and its efficacy. I would like to understand a little bit more about how RTÉ is going to update that and keep it as live and relevant to users as it can possibly be. Before Christmas there was a significant issue around access to the Irish Sign Language, ISL, element of the RTÉ Player. For how long did that happen? When it was rectified was there follow up to see how we can ensure that it does not happen again?