Ms Dee Forbes:

It is important to say we put forward in our submission the recommendation all the members made in 2017. When asked, we would favour the idea of a household charge collected by Revenue, as the committee's report indicated many years ago. The discussion of the funding is not for me or anybody on this call to decide; it is ultimately a matter for the regulator. This is why the creation of a new regulator, that is the media commission, which is proposed in the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, is also fundamental to this process. It is not for any of us here to decide. There are numerous models that have worked for many countries. Italy is a great example of that. It moved from a chronic evasion space to bringing in a charge, which was linked to the electricity bill. The compliance level was at such a level that they reduced the overall amount of the charge.

There were many models. The model to which the Senator referred to in terms of abolishing the licence fee and going to a tax-based system works fantastically well in the Nordic countries, for example, but the crucial thing here is that whatever happens-----