Mr. Paul Gordon:

In response to the Deputy's final question, in terms of ensuring that the traditional media reach young people, there is not necessarily a silver bullet to solve that problem, especially in a fragmented sector. However, there are push and pull factors. Among the push factors is there is less trust from younger people in traditional media. That harks back to the issue of perhaps less representation than other age groups. They are disinterested in news, which is a particular challenge around disinformation. The 18-24 age group is the least interested and after that the 25-34 age group is the second most disinterested. That is a real challenge. We have seen that interest in news drop off a cliff in recent years, as in the DCU and Reuters annual report.

In terms of the pull factors, the things that can be changed, younger people tend to see traditional media and news as reported in a dry, serious, institutional way. It needs to adjust to a new media landscape that is more irreverent. Studies on this have shown that older people see the news as what you should know, but younger people see it as a bit of that but also what is interesting to know, what is fun to know and what information they can share. The media must change its mindset to adapt to that. That is something that has been done elsewhere and can be done in an Irish setting. Some positive examples of that have happened.

There were many welcome recommendations in the Future of Media Commission's report on the role of the commission. As we discussed, the implementation of diversity on boards is important. Another factor is engagement with youth representation in terms of diversity and youth content and ensuring that is built into editorial and production values.

I will keep beating the drum about data because we need to understand youth representation in the sector but also EDI. We must collect that data. The Department and the commission must move to legislate to ensure that EDI data are published. That is something we would very much like to see and would be very welcome. That cannot be delayed any further.