Ms Moya Doherty:

I thank the committee again for the opportunity. I really appreciate the Senator's support for change as that must happen in how funds are collected and bringing certainty to that. Ms Forbes mentioned earlier that the key elements are independence, stability, fairness and accountability. RTÉ has probably always suffered from an assumption that it should meet the needs of those who are in charge of it. The only people that RTÉ should meet the needs of are citizen audiences who are paying for the service. RTÉ must continue to shine a lens on all aspects of society it represents.

It should be a patriotic public service media in that it shows all that is bad and good about a nation in order that it may be able to confront and negotiate all that is good and bad. No public service media can be a voice for a specific set of political ideologies. We have darkening political clouds all over place in the two English-speaking countries near to us, the UK and America, which are now into sound-bite politics. If public service media gets something wrong, it is a mistake. If commercial television gets something wrong, for example, Fox News, it is an ideology and an agenda. We have to do the best we can, including everybody here today and everyone in politics, to ensure that we protect the independent voice, that we do not have sound-bite politics and that we do not truncate very important issues and assertions of some core truths into something that is glib and untrue. A lie and an untruth are two different things. We are watching so many untruths unfold around us.

I have to say that trust in RTÉ news and current affairs is extraordinarily high. It gives me comfort, as an Irish citizen, as I am sure it does many others. To give certainty to that voice in the future and to have the committee on our side for that, no matter what members agree with, like or do not like, is very important. As I said in my statement earlier, time is not on our side.