Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their opening statements. The ratings issue is critical here and I am a little confused. Are the witnesses trying to get broad acceptance of the seriousness of the climate crisis or are they trying to develop programming that will educate future climate scientists? If they are trying to do the latter, then absolutely the ratings are not so important as long as there are a few people tuning in. If they are trying to do the former, they need to have the shows with the highest ratings featuring climate action, and that is what we want to see. Do the witnesses have climate action and climate science woven through their flagship shows, which have the highest ratings? Is that where we will be likely to see climate in the future? I am not sure I do.

To go back to the issue of conflicts between advertising and editorial content, there is evidence from the US, in particular, that where there is a lot of fossil fuel advertising, it has an impact on editorial content and it waters down the type of content we then see. Do the witnesses have safeguards in place in the editorial section to stop that from happening? What are the processes in place to make sure that is not happening?

As regards advertising and greenwashing, I see a type of greenwashing advertising coming on in the middle of shows that show climate action. There will be advertising for cars, for instance, that are hybrid, and that will come on in the middle of a climate show, as if, if you believe in the science, this is the next thing you must do. They are not kept separate. That is where there is a big problem if editorial and advertising are not talking to each other, and it is undermining the witnesses' own shows, with respect.