Mr. Rory Coveney:

On the multi-annual nature and why it is important for RTÉ, all of our significant investments are over numbers of years. Whether it is a decision to go into a sports rights partnership with Virgin concerning the Six Nations tournament or a capital plan to upgrade our player, these things take years. That is the first thing concerning planning in a multi-annual way. We make very big financial commitments over many years at a point in time, potentially for two or three years or five years in some cases for some of the sports rights, for example. Not knowing how much money we will have in the future makes that much more difficult.

Another issue, which has been talked about significantly in the Future of Media Commission's report, is independence from the political system and everything. Multi-annual funding commitments give us a certain insulation to do what we are supposed to do and to maintain, particularly our editorial independence around some of the choices we need to make and should make independently of this place or anywhere else, or any other interests for that matter. Some security around being able to plan is absolutely essential.