Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I cannot remember when the committee started debating the retransmission issue but I think it was nearly a year ago that we had the hearing. Anyone listening to the discussion we had around it would know that the Minister has the political cover to act on it because we were pretty much united and perfectly clear having heard the initial evidence that there was a really strong case. There is some frustration that the process took time, although we were clear in our report after the Dublin Castle event that we thought the retransmission issue was one of the basket of measures that the Minister needed to pick up. It is true there are all sorts of legal checks, and a final legal scoot around is necessary, but for the Minister to suggest the committee delayed it to 8 March is incorrect. Anyone following this process over the last year knows that the committee could not have been clearer about the retransmission issue and the need to act fast on it. The idea that the committee's main recommendation was for there to be more regulatory analysis and that the Department has not done it over the last year beggars belief. We need to act fast on this. As Deputy Dooley said, the Minister has political support and cover to do something. It cannot just be the advertisements I keep hearing on the radio from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment telling me to pay my television licence, which do nothing to address evasion. If that is our ongoing response, it is not good enough.