Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will start where the last contributions concluded, with expressions of sympathy to the organisation on the loss of two greats. I did not get to Sligo even though I knew Tommie for many years. I did get to Dingle on Saturday for the funeral of the late Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. They were clearly two wonderful ambassadors of RTÉ and great representatives of what Irish culture and Irish society is about. Sometimes in the middle and the morass of all this a lot of the good people get lost, missed and forgotten about because of the actions or misdeeds of some.

I have advocated for quite some time that we need to move on from the blame game. The damage has been done. I compliment Mr. Bakhurst and his interim leadership team. Perhaps he will tell us when it is not going to be an interim leadership team anymore. It is important to recognise what Mr. Bakhurst has achieved. If Deputy McGrath was still here, I am sure he would say that we are attempting to flatter Mr. Bakhurst, but we are not. We are trying to protect an organisation that is really important to the democratic institutions of this State and is there to hold Government and all aspects of society to account. As Deputy Ring might say, we not might like when we do not feature in certain positive stories but this is a feature of what the whole thing is actually about. I compliment Mr. Bakhurst on what he has done in the stabilisation.

In his opening statement Mr. Bakhurst said that notwithstanding everything that has happened, the Irish public trusts RTÉ from a news and current affairs perspective. They put RTÉ up there with The Irish Times. I believe this is justified. I mentioned here before that we saw the best and the worst of RTÉ in the context of what happened. We saw news and current affairs holding elements of the organisation to account. That is as it should be. This clearly demonstrates to me that notwithstanding what has happened, the Irish people still trust the content RTÉ provides. It goes back to my initial point that this is really important given RTÉ's role in a truly democratic society.

This brings me on to my next point about funding. I will not push Mr. Bakhurst on it because he clearly does not want me to do so, but it is an important point to make when we are talking about funding public service broadcasting. If one believes in the principle of public service broadcasting then one must pay for it. I like the idea of linking it to a licence fee or a contribution. I know there will not be enough collected through the licence fee and there has to be a hybrid model but it would be foolhardy of any Government to put the entirety of the responsibility on the Exchequer at a time when there clearly is a trust among the Irish people. Some people have decided not to pay. I have heard people saying they will not pay because others are not paying or they do not believe that they will have to pay and they will get away with it. That was the same with some of the household charges when they came in first. When that charge moved to Revenue people got over any concerns they had because they just do not like that letter with the harp coming in. Compliance skyrocketed when it moved from the local authorities to Revenue.

I ask Mr. Bakhurst to talk a little bit about the quantum of money that RTÉ needs and how he might see that growing over time. The strategy document is a five-year document and Mr. Bakhurst said it is hoped to reduce the numbers by 400 over five years. What kind of financial firepower will RTÉ need over that period to achieve that rectification?