Mr. Eddie Noonan:

I thank the committee for this opportunity.

Although we are obviously running on a much smaller scale than RTÉ, TG4 or Virgin Media, we still have many of the same tasks to do – programming, scheduling content, broadcast engineering, financial management and compliance with the Coimisiún na Meán codes and standards, to name just a few. This requires a team of professional paid staff, supported by volunteers. To develop sustainably, we need a guaranteed source of annual income to cover wages and annual running costs.

The social benefit is something we are very committed to and, on a more positive note, the opening up of the social benefit round of Sound and Vision to community television has been very successful and is a step in the right direction. We believe that the social benefit framework can serve as a template for the upcoming community media fund. The CTA welcomed the 2022 recommendation from the Future of Media Commission that a community media fund be established. We believe this community media fund has the potential to be a real game-changer for our sector, and we ask that budget 2026 has the necessary allocation of funds to begin this much needed work.

Community television should be available on a free-to-air basis to everyone in the country, and in the future, we would like to also see a community television station or channel on Saorview or on a player which could be a "best of community TV" station from Dublin and Cork. We have good relationships with Virgin Media and it supports us, but we would like to see ourselves up the box numbers-wise. We could also develop an all-island channel, which is something we are very interested in, with NVTV in Belfast.

To finish, we have a proven track record in providing social benefit and helping to build community through media. With further support, we know that we can achieve so much.