Mr. Rory Coveney:

The story of the switch to digital television in Ireland is a long one. The Saorview or free-to-air service that emerged was not the one envisaged and it is not the one that is still envisaged in the broadcasting legislation. There was always supposed to be a complementary set of commercial multiplexes - a hybrid of free-to-air and pay terrestrial services.

There was a series of attempts by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, to create a series of competitions to deliver the commercial multiplex. It never came. As a result, we ended up with a scenario - at enormous cost to RTÉ, I might add - to build out the service and to provide a digital switch over that allowed the State to make close to €900 million in terms of a subsequent spectrum sale.

The history of this is by no means perfect from a regulatory perspective. It was not the service that was intended in terms of the Broadcasting Act 2009. What we have ended up with is a regulated service, where we do not control the price. We would love to have more services on it. If more services come on it, it will get cheaper for everyone. The reality is, however, that it is a regulated service. We do not have the discretion to which the Senator referred to incentivise channels to come onto it, unfortunately.

The bigger question in the medium term, or in the next decade, is what does free-to-air, FTA, look like in a fully Internet provided, IP, world? It is a very different scenario where one has ISPs deciding on what access people have. What does free-to-air look like in a world where it is delivered over the Internet and Internet broadband connectivity is provided by a whole series of third parties as an intermediary between that? What does free-to-air look like in a scenario when everything is "on demand"? There are much bigger questions on the future of Saorview, a brand in relation to the channels that are on it. The long-term future of linear distribution as IP technology evolves is a really big question.