Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and our witnesses for their presentations. At the start, I will make a general comment, which is that the issues we are talking about are fundamental to our democracy and to our society, namely, that we have a free and fair media and that we have freedom of expression, which must be balanced with responsibilities. We have broadly got right the principles that underpin both our national legislation and what is happening at a European level. Our arguments are very much around structure. I want to challenge some of what the witnesses have been saying first before coming on to some specific questions.

I think Mr. Dooley is right. If we were here I would not necessarily have started with coimisiún na mean’s overarching responsibilities. It will be the most powerful regulator in the State, particularly when it takes on some of the responsibilities under the Digital Services Act. Increasingly, there will be more regulatory responsibilities. I therefore think that Mr. Dooley is correct. We have been speaking with the BAI over the past few years, which will need to move from 40 to more than 400 staff. In many cases, these will be specialist staff that will be required in a relatively short time. It is right, however, that we should have a powerful regulator. Some of my criticisms, as colleagues in the committee will know, are that we possibly did not give them enough teeth in certain areas to be able tackle some of those ownership questions. This is especially the case on the social media side. The first issue I would like to raise is not the issue of resourcing, but the level of teeth the body has to be able to take action.

Second, I will challenge Dr. Flynn on the issue of appointments to the board. The Chair, the clerk and I will recall process of appointments to the board of RTÉ and our colleagues in the Oireachtas comhchoiste na Gaeilge will recall appointments to TG4, both of which came through the Public Appointments Service. There was a short-listing process and an interview process etc., so it was very open and transparent. The clerk can correct me on this detail but I think there were 52 applicants for the four appointments to RTÉ. That was therefore quite an open process. I am not quite certain that I would move to the idea - as I know happens in other jurisdictions like in the case of the FCC - that we could have people here and they could be interviewed in a public fashion or whether we could go down that road.

With regard to the new commissioners, they are accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts for the expenditure and finance, but there is a case on some of their decisions. I will touch on some of those issues first before I go into some specific questions and perhaps the witnesses will respond to the arguments I have made.