Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Doherty and Ms Forbes for joining us. I want to get the good news out of the way. It is not possible in broadcasting to please all the people all the time. Most of the time, the feedback I hear from members of the public about the role RTÉ plays is generally positive. There is some great content out there. There is not enough Irish content but the job that is done by everyone at the national broadcaster at every level is generally considered to be positive.

That said, there are areas that need to be improved. RTÉ needs to read the room about the licence fee at the moment. This is not a time to be going to people and looking for extra money. In a way, RTÉ needs to earn that money and prove that a fee increase would be worthy and the right thing to do.

I am sorry to keep going back to this issue but last year, we were in contact with RTÉ about the new year celebrations in 2020 going into 2021. In 2021 going into 2022, we had an awful debacle with the new year television celebration. What has RTÉ got against New Year's Eve? Last year, it got the tone wrong and this year it managed to get the time wrong. It has one job on New Year's Eve, which is the ten-second countdown. I would say that CNN was welcoming in the new year before RTÉ this year, it was so far behind. Simple things like that resonate with people if they are not done right. Then, a few weeks later, RTÉ comes along seeking an increase in the licence fee. The two do not wash.

Will RTÉ look at the new year celebrations next year and try to get them right, once and for all? What we have seen in the past couple of years was insulting to people. There was a difficult Christmas and new year period for many people who were at home. There was huge viewership. One would have thought that more effort would go into getting the programming right. I will not go any further into what we got. We know what it was and it was not good enough.

Regarding the Irish language, a reference was made to more money. Why are Irish language programmes always the additional extra if there is more money? Why do we not seem to be getting Irish language programmes when other areas are not sacrificed? That is what I am picking up from the conversation here and from earlier comments. Will the witnesses elaborate on that?

Regarding children's programmes, I grew up in an era which, in hindsight, may have been a golden era of Irish content. We have seen a significant fall-off in that in recent years. Culturally, that is important. The one great hope that we had in recent times was the return of "The Den". For some reason, that programme did not come back in 2021, although we understood that it would. Why did it not come back in 2021? In 2020, it was one of the most positive developments across the board in RTÉ, yet autumn 2021 came and "The Den" did not return. Will the witnesses explain that? I have not been able to find out definitively what happened there. It was a huge mistake. It was one of the most positive developments we have seen in children's television programming. It is not just for children, but also for the big kids among us who really enjoy it too.