Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being delayed. I will start with some questions concerning the opening statement. I apologise as well if some of these questions have been posed already. I welcome Ms Forbes and her team. It is good to see everybody again. Turning to the opening statement from the Comptroller and Auditor General, concerning the additional funding provided to support enhanced programming during the Covid-19 pandemic, I am aware of the educational programmes that were broadcast. I commend them, because they were very informative and beneficial, given that schools were closed at the time and there was online learning. Those programmes were good productions and really well done. I praise the people behind those programmes. What other types of programming were funded from that additional allocation given in 2020?

Regarding the licence fee, I noticed that roughly the same amount of money was collected in 2019 as in 2020. Ms Forbes said that there was a rate of a little over 15% for non-payment of the licence fee. What steps are being taken in that regard, or what kind of review of the process is underway, to try to reduce that figure? It has climbed year on year, if I am not mistaken. A similar figure is provided in Ms Forbes' opening statement concerning more than 15% of people who classify themselves as having no television, if I am not mistaken on that aspect.

Moving to the mention that was made of the critical upgrading of studio and broadcasting infrastructure, what kind of percentage of RTÉ's overall spending is being spent on replacing that equipment? Those are my questions for now.