Mr. Jack Byrne:

Senator Warfield mentioned community television. We are here as CRAOL representing community radio. Those in community television are our colleagues and they communicate through a different media platform. The Senator can see my grey beard. I have been at this for a long time. In 1990 in UCD we held an international community radio conference. The theme of the conference was the right to communicate through all available media. FM was the big buzz at that time. We all wanted FM radio. We are now evolving. We believe these community media hubs will allow other platforms such as community television and we can have an audiovisual platform that will allow people to communicate more. We very much welcome the involvement of community television people. They are part of our sector of community media.

With regard to the paywall, as I mentioned earlier, whatever money or funding revenue we arrive at will probably still not be enough. We believe the various schemes should be targeted with regard to certain identified content that has to be delivered. The schemes need to be broad enough that all types of media, including print media and local radio, should be involved in them. A targeted schemes model would allow community media and other media to avail of the limited fund in a targeted way.