Mr. Will Ryan:

In my company, when there was resistance towards digital originally, I always spoke about whether this could affect our jobs. Of course, it will not. It will make no difference because our model just moves on to a different platform. Everyone who is employed in the building would remain employed. One would just have a different revenue stream.

The biggest problem I see going forward is that, as a business model, journalism does not produce a return. That should not be the case. The fundamental issue right now is that if one wants good investigative journalism and to really hold one’s local council to account, or if one wants people to spend hours down in the courts covering what is going on, that is costly. The return one would receive from advertising or from people buying the newspaper is minuscule.

As a business model, supporting journalism is not a wise bet. That is the part that needs attention. We are all still continuing to do that because we believe it is important to the model but also because it is right thing to do. What is the alternative? As Deputy Cannon said, for the generation coming through, how will journalism be supported if everyone gets information off TikTok, or wherever? It is not even that these platforms are bad but that it may be the case that there is no other way of getting this information.

Google is not hiring journalists. It does not send people to local council meetings. I do not believe it has shared any business plan that will involve that. I do not believe it will invest in that because its shareholders will say it is not a good return for business. If it is journalism that the committee is trying to support - and Mr. Feeney hit very close - perhaps it can find a way for us to think that journalists are no longer the big cost they could be. After that, the rest is our own business model. If it is radio or if it is print or a free paper, it should not make a difference. It is up to us to make the other side of the business work. When we are thinking about costs or how to invest, the one thing that should not be on our minds is that journalism is too much. It should not be something we look at in that regard. Journalism should be something that is automatically protected. Any device the Government has that could assist us in ring-fencing or protecting those jobs will support the entire industry.