Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

In fairness, we will discuss all of that. That is the reason. It is a very important topic.

To get back to what we are here today to discuss, namely, the overlap between the media and politics and the whole issue that arose as a result of the presidential election, that is the core of what we are discussing today, even if we went a little off topic. There are no perfect answers here, obviously. We have to respect individuals and we also have to respect freedom of expression, but there is a regulatory gap. We will have Ivan Yates in here later. We are very thankful for him actually coming in here. He decided to come in here unlike others. I think that is a good thing and I appreciate him doing so because we have to hear from practitioners. In everything we do inside here, we have all sides. There are obviously multiple sides, or two sides, here and he is coming in. We will hear from him later. It is obvious there is a regulatory gap and there is a requirement to fill this gap. It is obvious we have a piece of legislation coming down the road. I think the key focus here is with the Department in relation to that legislation and how it can be implemented by Coimisiún na Meán. That is where our committee would focus in on as regards the Bill that will come forward. I respect the fact there are time pressures. I would re-emphasise the balancing issue in relation to public broadcasting versus those who are commercial and that balance that needs to be changed. The issue of politics and media in relation to podcasting needs to be a component of it. That is obviously what we got from today.

Are we going down the road where every single time someone is doing an interview will have to declare immediately and at every instance? I do not know if that is practical. I have no firm view on that. Politicians have to do declarations every year. Maybe there could be a format where it is done once a quarter for issues like this or there may be some other way that the witnesses can think of, but from a legislative point of view, it must be very clear this is dealt with so that Coimisiún na Meán has the basis on which it can do its work.

Another issue that has been very well explained and come across to us in detail is the issue of engagement with providers, that is, broadcasters. That has been an education for us on this committee. The process by which Coimisiún na Meán, which is quite a young organisation, engages with them and how we thought it engaged with them is not the same, and we are legislators. We would have understood it was basically mandatory and it should be mandatory. The idea that Coimisiún na Meán has to go out and chase them is alarming, to be honest. If we have to firm up legislation on that in some way to give Coimisiún na Meán more certainty about how broadcasters deal with it, then we need to do so.

As I said earlier, I know there is a fine balance but we cannot be just conservative. We have to deal with this issue in the interests of the public so the public knows the sieve through which it is consuming this sort of political commentary. It is an issue we need to deal with.

We will conclude this session. I thank everyone sincerely for their engagement. They have been very open, in fairness, and I thank them. I know it is a tricky period in regard to legislation coming through in the Department, time pressure and so on, so I appreciate that too.