Ms Patricia Cronin:

It increased from €100 million to €340 million at the end of 2015. The evasion rate is 13.75%, which is quite high by international standards. Very roughly, if it declined to, say, 5%, that would harness an extra €25 million, which is a reasonable amount of money. That could potentially have been part of the rationale for the decision by the Minister to put licence fee collection out to tender. It is a lot of money to forgo for RTE and the independent broadcasters via the Sound and Vision fund. The Minister has spoken at various fora and, in addition to his statutory responsibilities for RTE and TG4, he is quite interested in and focused on local radio. He feels they provide a good service. Clearly, like everybody else, they are facing challenges as well.