Mr. Adrian Lynch:

It is good to distil it down to the issue. The issue is the three payments that have been made to Ryan Tubridy directly from RTÉ that should have been declared when these numbers were laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas and the public.

The chair has already alluded to it in terms of the relationship between commercial and public service and the way RTÉ is structured, but our revenue is €200 million from the licence fee and €149 million from commercial. That is not insubstantial. The Future of Media Commission forensically examined models of public service across Europe. One can see that the vast majority of public service broadcasters in Europe are 100% funded through some mechanic and they do not have this level of advertising. For example, a company like the BBC has the licence fee while BBC Studios, which is at arm’s length from the company, generates approximately £1.2 billion from international sales.

It does, to respond to the Chair's earlier comment, raise questions about how public service media should be funded. Through all of the debate and noise around the three payments that have been made, the only piece of light is the recognition by the Houses of the importance of public service media and that it should be correctly funded so that it can achieve its objectives with no, as the Deputy said, “malign influence”. I am not saying that commercial is a malign influence but there needs to be a clarity and transparency to it.