Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our witnesses. As others have said, it is disappointing the Future of Media Commission report has not been published for us to speak about here today.

The witnesses sent documentation on the appointment of board members, which is in the brief for today. To be honest, I was extremely frustrated and disappointed with what happened last year when there was a nomination by the working group fully endorsed by this committee, which represents licence holders and the taxpayer. The views of this committee should have been taken on board and adhered to. It was frustrating that even when we sent correspondence to RTÉ, we did not receive return correspondence for the following meeting. We had to send correspondence again, including about the party that took place. It is very disappointing when this committee represents the taxpayer, which funds the running of RTÉ. It is a remit of the committee to make such recommendations and they should have been taken on board. There should not be a position where a person nominated by this committee and who was extremely experienced in television felt he had to resign after the first meeting.

Many topics have been discussed over the past hour and a half and I will touch on a few of those. I compliment RTÉ on its sport coverage, particularly its coverage of many minority sports. We have free-to-air GAA etc. but it has been mentioned by others that one must pay approximately €29.95 to see premium games on Sky etc. We recently had representatives from the Federation of Irish Sport before us and we spoke about the 20x20 campaign and increasing the coverage of ladies' sports and participation in those sports. What is the position of RTÉ on that? There are definitely many more female commentators on various sports but is RTÉ looking to increase both the number of commentators and coverage of ladies' games?