Mr. Michael Kelly:

I am very grateful to the Deputy for raising that because it comes right to the core of the issue. At the moment, there are blockages that are preventing the funding of local radio and independent radio. Those blockages are unfortunately currently built and baked into the Bill. That is the reason we are delighted to be here to explain that. One of the two blockages is the additionality issue, or the fact you can only get funding if you either stop doing something and start doing it again or if you never did it in the past. Of course, that is hugely unfair to us because we have always covered a wide range of news and current affairs. Therefore, we cannot apply for additional categorisation and we cannot get any funding.

We are fully regulated and we are regulated in a much different way than self-regulation operates - a very different way. Our regulatory obligations are huge and very stringent and yet we do not qualify for any kind of ring-fenced or bespoke funding, even though the obligations of RTÉ and Virgin Media are the gold standard obligations for regulatory coverage. They are the two things. If those are not addressed, we go down the disinformation operation.