Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No, they have set out their stall. As I see it, the challenge that is facing both the board and the executive is that on the one hand, they have got to address what has happened. There is a whole series of reports and investigations under way that they have got to work with and participate in. At the same time, they have to try to put the wheels back on the bus. They have to try to show confidence in their ability to provide a public service media. They have to try to bring the trust of the staff back on board as well as the trust of the licence payer, the Government, etc., and that is a challenge. I would like to see a situation where the historical or legacy aspect is left to those various investigations that are under way, and that the board and the executive could concentrate far more seriously, with input from these committees, on what the future of public service media is, and what RTÉ's role is in that. That is where I would like to focus the witnesses' attention on.

I will go back to something that Ms Ní Raghallaigh said at the outset, and Mr. Bakhurst as well. It was a kind of a challenge to us, and it is a challenge to them and everybody else. They talked about difficult decisions that have to be taken that might not be popular. I would like to explore those with them if I could, and have the issues set out for us. For sure, there is a resistance to pay the licence. Mine is up at the end of the month, and I will pay it happily because I am still taking the content that RTÉ is producing. I am still consuming that at the same level. If anybody gave any kind of fair analysis of the way in which RTÉ journalism focused on the issues, they would have to rate it highly. There were one or two submissions here that questioned the number of times an individual's name was mentioned in the context of RTÉ versus other media.

RTÉ has held its executive and the indiscretions to account. As Mr. Kehoe and others have said, we have seen the best and the worst. We need to move on, and I would like the witnesses to paint for us the outlook or the horizon if we do not get an appropriate funding model in place.