Mr. Declan McBennett:

I am grateful for the invitation. Sport is and always has been an integral part of our content and output as the national broadcaster. Sport is part of the Irish DNA and RTÉ has always been the mirror that reflects the success and disappointment that inevitably comes with competition. The role of RTÉ Sport has always been, and continues to be, to take that individual feeling and transform it to a collective national narrative. We broadcast across radio, television and digital moments that unite a nation and reflect club, county, province and country.

In 2022, 15 of the top 20 most watched programmes in Ireland were live sporting events. Twelve of those 15 were broadcast on RTÉ. This alone is indicative of how important sport is not just to broadcasters but to the audience we serve.

Sports rights, which are the central tenet of any broadcaster, have expanded, fragmented and, in many cases, grown to exorbitant financial levels. Sporting organisations and federations now face the unenviable task of striking a balance between revenue and reach, maximising their commercial return for investment while growing their respective sports through engagement and participation. The nature of this difficulty is best understood if the sporting landscape is split into three parts. Those are the big four - GAA, soccer, rugby and racing - which dominate the sporting landscape; the Olympics-cycle sports, which fight for prominence, often through peaks and troughs; and minority sports, which often struggle for both commercial return and audience engagement. In 2019, RTÉ broadcast 653 hours of televised sport. In 2020, this figure dipped to 435 hours due to the global pandemic and the suspension of sporting activity. In 2021, the number of hours grew to 782. It grew again in 2022 to 859 hours and is likely to exceed 1,000 hours in 2023. We have never broadcast as much free-to-air sport. We are broadcasting more GAA, soccer, rugby, Olympics sports and, critically, women's sport than ever. Our flagship radio programmes, "Saturday Sport" and "Sunday Sport", are a core part of our output, together with key sports bulletins on the "Six One News" and "Morning Ireland", while RTÉ Sport online has grown from 312 million page views in 2017 to 457 million page views in 2022.

One of the greatest areas of growth has been in the area of women’s sport. Our camogie coverage has increased. We enjoyed World Cup and Olympic Games journeys with our international hockey team and we will now see our rugby 7s team compete at the Olympic Games in Paris. First up, however, will be the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. In 2019, RTÉ Sport, in conjunction with TG4, crossed the Rubicon in sports coverage for women when every game of the World Cup was broadcast. That was an example of two public service broadcasters coming together to ensure true equality of coverage.

RTÉ does not, and should not, have a monopoly on sports coverage. We share GAA rights with TG4 and BBC Northern Ireland. We share rugby rights with Virgin Media for the Six Nations Championship and the upcoming Men's Rugby World Cup, and we share the United Rugby Championship with TG4 and BBC Northern Ireland.

In the age in which we live, it is neither realistic nor feasible that all sport can be or will be free to air. The growth of over-the-top, OTT, services or streaming is a reality in global sport. Ireland, however small, cannot escape this reality and Covid-19 changed the landscape with regard to streaming. Every county and every code adapted to this new reality. RTÉ Sport was the catalyst for the birth of WATCHLOI, which allowed League of Ireland fans to access games in 2020. Some 166 soccer matches were covered at the time.