Mr. Noel Curran:

He was interviewed as part of the report. The references to the weather do not mean that the studio was leaking or so on. Rather, they related to the number of people who did not turn up at short notice. As an experienced broadcaster, we should have coped with that problem. We are not making excuses. We do these debates well and have done them for a long time. We should have had contingencies for this problem, but we did not. The references are not meant to use the weather as a lame excuse. Many people did not turn up at the last minute. On such a big night with so many candidates, this created an added degree of disarray. We should have dealt with it.

Regarding the Deputy's referral to the debates commission, we are open to having discussions about how debates are done. RTE used to be the only broadcaster that did debates. Other broadcasters now do them. We are open to having positive discussions with whoever. The experience of commissions elsewhere is mixed. America has the Commission on Presidential Debates, CPD. Although it is an independent, non-profit organisation, it is effectively controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties. The CPD discusses a 32-page contract on how to carry out the debates with the parties. Eighteen pro-democracy groups took legal action against the CPD at the last election and candidates of smaller parties have continually stated that they have been excluded. It is a non-profit, separate corporation, but it was founded by the two main parties. Canada examined the idea of a commission and decided not to have one.

The UK has pursued an approach whereby the broadcasters and three political parties agree a 75-page document that is published in advance. This was the first time it was done and people were conservative in their approach to it. Negotiating such a contract would be difficult. I have negotiated three leaders' debates. They took up more of my time than any other programme that I have ever put together. Given that we have five parties, a strong independent sector, a range of broadcasters and a regulator, a commission would be complicated. This does not mean it would be impossible or that RTE will only do this work one way.

There is almost no country in which people are satisfied with debates. Many complaints were made about the moderator during the pivotal debate in the last election. When the UK used an audience research company, ICM, 80% of the audience had effectively shown party affiliations while 20% were unaffiliated. Only yesterday, Prime Minister David Cameron stated that he believed that the debate structure needed to be changed, as it was sterile and boring and the public did not engage properly with it.

There is no perfect system. In RTE's defence, we have been running debates for a long time and, as far as I am aware, no serious complaints or issues have arisen concerning them, including our debates on the fiscal treaty and children's referenda. I will give the committee a sense of how our approach has changed. There were 26 people from the "Yes" side and 27 people from the "No" side in the audience of our "The Frontline" programme on the children's rights referendum. We took ten audience questions, five from the "Yes" side and five from the "No" side. The difference in time allocated to both sides for their answers was 36 seconds in a 33-minute segment of the programme. We are learning. Perfection is not a virtue that I have ever claimed for RTE, but we have done debates well in the past. This does not rule us out from engaging positively and proactively in any new debate on how to run them.

We will publish more information on our approach in advance of future debates. We hold many discussions with political parties. Understandably, they have different views on debates. Often, these depend on how well they believe candidates will do. That is a natural decision.

Regarding the independent audit, the reputable Press Ombudsman examined our procedures as a result of the "Mission to Prey" programme. We have implemented each of his recommendations. Another reputable external contributor was involved in this report and we have implemented all of the recommendations. The quality of our journalism and our approach to news and current affairs is not reflected in the two reports on the programmes in question. One cannot do 40 hours of news and current affairs live every week in the white heat of election debates and not encounter problems every week.

We also have huge internal checks and balances, which did not work in this instance. That is why we have put in place new systems for the future.

The Deputy mentioned going back 15 or 20 years to consider programmes properly. There was a Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, investigation into "Mission to Prey" and although the investigator moved incredibly quickly, it still took seven months rather than the indicated two months. Due process takes a considerable amount of time, as the BBC is now finding out. It launched an investigation into "Newsnight" which it indicated would be done in four weeks and although we are two months into that, we still have not seen the end product. Going back 15 or 20 years, involving people who have left the organisation and moved on, is not necessary. In the opening statement I mentioned that these programmes have had a profound effect on RTE and we are moving on and making changes. People should judge us on how we react to those changes.

The BAI criticised us for not publishing the working document. There has been much understandable commentary about stand-offs involving RTE and the BAI in this regard. The BAI compliance committee, led by Mr. Chris Morash, whom I have never met, does a very fair job, although it is difficult. I agree with some of its decisions and strongly disagree with some, which is to be expected. It does a difficult and important, although sometimes thankless, job. We had a difficulty with the wording in its statement regarding the difference between the two documents. I will not get into that here.

We also felt that if we had known we would be asked to publish the working document, we could have got clearance in advance. We did not know that and we saw 20 minutes before the press that this request would come through. We knew we would be asked to publish the report and we agreed to do it. We never said that we would not publish the working document. As soon as we saw the statement, we met immediately as a group and considered how to get the approvals to get out the working document. This is not a big stand-off between RTE and the regulator, and we have no issue with the idea that RTE must be regulated. If people make complaints, they cannot be dealt with just by RTE and there should be recourse if public money is used. Although I disagree with some of the judgments made by the compliance committee, as I would, it does a very fair job on the whole.

I will bring in Mr. Bakhurst and Ms Duignan in on the issue of social media. I will come back to any questions I have forgotten.