Mr. Danny McCarthy:

The view of the people I represent is that local radio is as bad as RTE in terms of getting airplay for their music during the day - that is, from 7 o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock in the evening. Those are the hours during which there is prime time listenership, and that is an important factor.

When I decided to examine the legislation covering broadcasting, I found that the one great word that was written in capital letters was "diversity". I decided to study the level of diversity in the Irish music industry. We have to embrace all aspects of Irish music. I am a folk singer-songwriter by profession. I have a song that received airplay in France, which sold a quarter of a million albums, but I cannot even get airplay for it in Ireland. However, I am not going down the road of talking about myself. I spoke to a great songwriter friend of mine recently, who told me that six months ago when he was being interviewed by one the local stations that was mentioned he asked for a track from his CD - which he had sent to the station - to be played, but the DJ told him that they did not keep Irish CDs on the CD files in their library. We have the most stupid, ridiculous legislation that does not empower anybody to do anything and, to compound that, we have no regulation. Midwest Radio was mentioned. It is a great station and those operating it have a business whereby they can rule themselves, run their own business and cater for their own needs. I will not speak about individual radio stations, but RTE radio is a typical example. We would only get three or four tracks of Irish recordings played, if we are lucky, on one music programme, "The Ronan Collins Show" at lunchtime, of all the music programmes broadcast from 7 o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock in the evening. I worked at the Ordnance Survey for 25 years and mathematics is something I love. In this respect, 92% talk radio as against 8% music does not add up, in my estimation. On Lyric FM there are two to three pure traditional radio programmes per week. That does not even give rise to a percentage ratio. The situation for us is disastrous.

I speak to songwriters and composers every day of the week who are unemployed and struggling to survive but they have the greatest qualities. They are brilliant, but we have no regulator to ensure their music gets airplay. We need to sit down and discuss this issue with the broadcasting authority. We met the Minister, Deputy Deenihan, and Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy two weeks ago and Phil Coulter was with us. The Deputy will recall that he said that if he were to write and record "The Town I loved So Well" today, it would not be played on Irish radio. That is the factual position and the reason I am here today. I am talking about something that is rotten, not in the state of Denmark but in the State of Ireland. I met Gay Mitchell, MEP, three months ago and he presented a case to the European Commission on my behalf. The European Commission has no knowledge of the ridiculous legislation to do with the 30% provision. We need to address this. I spoke the chief executive of a top music business recently and he said that 15% of those in the Irish music industry control 85% of the wealth. That is wrong. We need to change that. We need to have a middle class in this respect. When I started as a professional in 1985 I took a five-year career break from the Ordnance Survey and I kept a four-piece band employed and on the road, but I could not do that today. That is what is radically wrong. We cannot generate employment because we need access to airplay.

Regarding television, we have about 40 hours a week of imported soaps, Australian and British, and what have we got that is Irish? We have nothing. I rest my case. We have IMRO and the PPS, which collects money for the musicians who play on the recordings.