Dr. Eileen Culloty:

The role of the media pluralism commissioner will be to ensure that the policy and regulatory environment in Ireland and the environment in which all Irish-facing media will operate is designed and has enough oversight to ensure we have a vibrant media sphere, not just for journalism and news media but also for our cultural production, which is also a major part of the media system. There are many threats on multiple systems, including the harassment of journalists and media workers as well as the decline of media companies at national, regional and local level. Some previous witnesses have spoken about community media. It is about ensuring that we have a very vibrant national system for media throughout the system, including the public broadcaster. We believe that one role could tie together the various strands of concern and also have a future-looking perspective.