Ms Dee Forbes:

I will happily answer the Deputy's question. For the benefit of members, the audience council is overseen by the board of RTÉ. It is one of a number of councils under the auspices of the board. The board puts out a call for voluntary members to be part of the council which in a given year fulfils a number of duties, as determined by the board. It is important to say the council is not the only way we receive feedback from the public. The report to which the Deputy referred was produced in 2014. As far as I am aware, we have not used the audience council for something like it in recent times, but I will certainly check. However, what we now have and may not have had in 2014 is much greater engagement with the public, members of which are quick and happy to engage via email. We have an audience panel which we use regularly in considering topics such as editorial policy and various surveys. We have used the panel to gauge what is important and what the audience would like to see more of on RTÉ. That is how we make temperature checks to assess what is relevant to the audience. We also regularly have focus groups with our audience throughout the country. That is where we hear from the public. There are many radio shows which members of the audience ring to talk about a topic and one hears what is said loud and clear. Therefore, the audience council is not the only forum in which we get the reaction of the audience.

I think if Met Éireann did something such as set up a focus group on the dissemination of the message of climate change, it would yield some wonderful information.

To end on a positive note, there is an inherent trust in Met Éireann, which is a key point and that public trust in Met Éireann is its greatest asset - even though we do not always like the weather reports.