Mr. Peter Feeney:

The first point is that I think the relationship between ombudsmen in general and the Government is now at a good level. In other words politicians take the decisions of ombudsmen seriously and see the value for ordinary citizens in there being good ombudsmen services across financial services, children, language, and so forth. The relationship in general between all the ombudsmen and Government is now in quite a healthy state. Obviously in the early days the public confidence in ombudsmen's independence had to grow. Now, 20 or 30 years later, we have had excellent ombudsmen, information commissioners and excellent people in financial services and in the Garda, etc. There is now a good balance between the independence of ombudsmen and the attention that Government pays to them. Ombudsmen are very pleased that the joint committee is now taking ombudsmen under its umbrella because that helps us to get across the issues which we see as important and need to be addressed.

In other ombudsmen's annual reports I have seen several examples where citizens who have been denied their rights have got those rights addressed and have found justice through the operation of the ombudsman services. Our independence from Government is actually not a particularly critical disadvantage or advantage for us. It is more to do with the tradition of newspapers being independent of Government. As members know from the very beginning broadcasting was always subject to Government but newspapers were not. It is more for historical reasons that is there.

The second question is about the review. As Press Ombudsman and Press Council, we do not have any huge issue with our current structures. I do not want to sound complacent but we are actually quite happy with the structures that exist at present. However we are concerned that newspapers, which we think play an important role, are under very severe financial pressure. The Chair mentioned lay-offs. My understanding is that many local newspapers, in particular, have relied on pandemic employment schemes to fund their journalists over the past two years and that this obviously has come to an end. There is a concern in the industry that the jobs of some of those journalists may be at risk when they have to get paid out of reduced advertising revenue. The key point really is advertising revenue. I would make the point that much of the readership lost through the loss of sales of newspapers has been compensated for by increased accessing of online news. My view, and it is only my view, is that the way in which people absorb journalism works much better in print than online. If it is a lengthy investigative piece it is much easier to read that in a newspaper or magazine than it is to read it on a phone. Much of the use of mobile devices for access to journalism is to do with entertainment journalism and for goal scores and so forth. There is much less of the old fourth estate position of really looking into things and holding to account. That works better in print. I am hopeful that the Government will consider the proposals of the new media commission and that when the review of the Defamation Act 2009 takes place, it will put into place effect measures that will strengthen the role and value of media in Ireland.

As we all know, we share a language with a much larger dominant neighbour. In regard to television viewing and newspaper reading, public discourse in Ireland will lose out if the dominant source moves from being Irish sources to British sources. We can see this with Brexit. We can see this attitude today in cultural policy and the European agricultural policy over the years. It is terribly important that there is an Irish media which addresses Irish concerns with an Irish understanding of them. If we were to rely on our neighbours we would have, from our perspective, an understanding which I think would disadvantage us.