Mr. Noel Curran:

I think it arose quite close to the budget, so we are working through what that means because our initial projections were based on further reductions. We need to get those reductions out of the way and then work through what we are going to do, but it is difficult for us. We start working on a budget in August, and if we get a €5 million hit in December, that will throw us, so we are working through that.Several sports rights are up for negotiation at the moment and the loss of that €5 million is bound to impact on what we can bid for those rights. We are working through where we are at the moment.
More State funding is for programmes. This is through the broadcasting charge. I have heard people say publicly that when things go bad for RTE, we start looking for public money. We have not sought a licence fee increase. We have submitted in the appendices the increases that all semi-State and comparative private sector companies have received. We decided that we would sort ourselves out and sort out our own finances. We are looking at the new broadcasting charge and we want to make a commitment on programmes, and I think the specific question was about what we were going to do with it. Our commitment will be to programmes. It would be absolutely untenable for me to come in here or to go to a Minister and say that we want to get a share of whatever is the new broadcasting charge because we will not exist if we do not get it. That is not the position we have taken. We have said that we are looking for increased public funding to compete with our competitors and to provide more to the public.
I know Deputy O'Donovan from being here previously, but I also know the public have had a lot of concerns about salaries. That is why we took the action we took. I firmly believe that five of the top ten paid presenters in this country are not on RTE. We are not like them and we are not like our commercial competitors, but we do compete with them. I do not want to get into individuals and I do not want to get into criticism because it is a natural comparison, but if we pay someone €290,000 on a contract, which is the reduced fee, and if we take Ministers, Chancellors and Prime Ministers around Europe - The Irish Timesdid an interesting actuarial survey on what those pension payments are worth - there is no pension payment on top of what we pay. That is not to say they were not overpaid. That is not to say the public do not have concerns. I just think that some of the comparisons made directly between this-----