Mr. Robert Shortt:

If the Cathaoirleach is talking about cultural issues, I must agree with what the chair said earlier in relating the conversation she had with Kevin Bakhurst, the incoming director general. This is a personal view, but I know it would be the view of many members of staff as well. People feel uncomfortable with very high salaries going to presenters. People are very aware, and again this is my view, that our industry is changing at lightning speed. RTÉ has gone from being an organisation where perhaps two thirds of the revenue was commercial and one third came from the licence fee to the situation now where less than half of our income comes from commercial sources. Most of it, the majority of our funding, comes from the licence fee.

I think this has implications. We are becoming more of a public service broadcaster. We are still operating under an Act where we are dually funded, but the industry that underpins that Act has left that framework under which we must operate almost obsolete. It is incumbent on us to consider that as the industry we are working in changes, we must rethink that relationship. We must consider whether, as we become more of a public service-funded broadcaster, the kinds of commercial relationships that were part of the old model need to be looked at again. Quite what the bar is is another question. Somebody - I think it might have been Senator Malcolm Byrne - asked whether anyone should be paid more than the Taoiseach. These are exactly the types of questions we must engage with and the types of questions which, no doubt, will come up as part of this cultural review. I know that many staff are welcoming this cultural and governance review and they expect to make a full input into it. I will be bringing their views to board level as well as that review gets under way.