Mr. David Wheeldon:

I am conscious that my remarks got some attention, and I thank Deputies Dooley and Lawless for that. To be honest, I do not think we are that far apart. I wholly agree with the Deputies' analysis of the issue on the provision of news. We operate a loss-making television news service. We have just invested in a new correspondent in Dublin despite the fact it is a loss-making television news service. We find it very hard to monetise that, especially with the encroachment of the digital platforms, such as Google, Facebook and the others. It is a massive challenge and I wholly understand that. We believe, though, that we are a really strong partner for the Irish public service broadcaster. We also support public service broadcasting in all the markets we are in. We believe in linear television and it is at the heart of our service. We believe in local television, that is, local to the markets and reflecting the culture and the news of those markets. That is what our proposition is built upon. That is what differentiates us from Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon and all the rest. We are absolutely there. That is the reason we voluntarily comply with all of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, rules. We have chosen to do that because we recognise it is really important for the consumers in the market we are in.

On a little technical detail, although we do not have quite the same rules around must-carry, we are an open platform. Under European rules, if a broadcaster wants to broadcast on our platform, we have to provide it with the technical services that enable it to do that. That is the point about our platform, which is different from any others in that we are required to be open. I understand the committee members felt that what I was saying was an implicit threat. I apologise. It was not meant as that. I thought they would appreciate some honesty.

The honest truth is we are a pay TV platform. When a customer sits in a Saorview home and decides they want to pay to watch pay TV and they buy Sky, they do not buy Sky to buy RTE. They buy Sky to buy the pay channels. The reality is that if Ireland decides to go down this route, it is setting up a negotiation, as the committee members suggested, between us and RTE, and it has to know what we as a pay operator would do in those circumstances. We cannot pay for something that our customers do not value getting from us and can get for free elsewhere. It would undermine our fundamental model, not just in this market but in all of our markets. This was not meant as an idea that we were trying to use our power in other markets to influence this committee, merely that, as a pay operator, in any of our markets, whether in the UK, Ireland or Italy, if we paid for free things, we would very quickly end up in the same place as many others, even maybe in RTE's place, and we would be saying this is not sustainable. We have to be honest with the committee.

I genuinely believe that all of us around this table believe in public broadcasting and believe that we can be good partners to RTE. We have put things and want to put more things on the table that will help to address some of the issues committee members are concerned about, but going down this legislative route is preventing us at the moment from proceeding with those negotiations and could end up making the situation worse.