Mr. Daniel McConnell:

One other perspective is that the decline in the printed advertising revenue market in Ireland has been stark. That undermines or undercuts a lot of this discussion. If we cannot wash our face, we cannot survive. In 2007, the national publishers' advertising revenue was €367 million. The closing estimate for 2023 is under €94 million, so that is a sizeable drop. It is a different landscape completely.

On my earlier point, it may be that one is operating with no safety net of insurance, and one gets hit for a €50,000 or €60,000 settlement. As Michael Kealey and Dave O'Connell said earlier on, a large proportion of these cases do not even make court, and one is settling either on the steps of the court or long before.

All of that has a day-to-day impact that means you can hire one or two fewer journalists in a year. It has a direct impact on margins and all of that impacts the journalism you can do. This is not an abstract concept with which we are dealing. This is real day-to-day money. That is where it feeds in. When such a letter arrives on your desk on a Monday morning or Sunday night, you have to realise that if you do not deal with the issue pretty quickly, there will be a real impact on how you do your day-to-day business. That is not just at local level but also at national level.