Mr. Mark Scanlon:

Some clubs have been very lucky in the volunteer bases they have, especially in areas in commentary, for example. When we started LOITV, the initial service, WATCHLOI in partnership with RTÉ, as I mentioned earlier, was just for the men's Premier Division. When LOITV started, we relied massively on the clubs being able to step up and do the production. There are great examples in clubs like Longford Town, Athlone Town and Wexford F.C., which all have a huge base of volunteers who stepped in and were able to not only deliver the service for their clubs but also to upskill other volunteers in the other clubs. It has been brilliant. Since then, we have seen situations like commentators who have worked on the games in LOITV, and who had never previously done commentary, then stepping in and being able to move on to Virgin Media's commentary team. Graham Gartland at Shamrock Rovers, for example, was regularly doing the games for Shamrock Rovers and has been able to move on and step into TV. Various other commentators and pundits are getting an opportunity to start off in the service, so it has been really important.

Going back to Deputy O'Sullivan's initial comment, when he mentioned the impact of piracy, one of the biggest criticisms we were getting around LOITV was it not being available on various apps and people were asking why we could not develop an app. Again, though, this is that kind of chicken-and-egg scenario. Without the revenue coming in to help us develop the service, we cannot improve it for the end user. This year, being able to bring Premier Sports on board as a partner, with its expertise, has allowed us to be able to develop apps so our coverage is more accessible. People on mobile devices, tablets and now on smart TVs as well will be able to access it. Hopefully, we will be able to continue to improve the revenue and be able to impact on the areas around piracy by being able to improve the service and add more revenue. That will help the clubs to provide more opportunities for commentators, camera operators and so on.