Mr. Jon Williams:

Perhaps I can deal with the issue raised by the Deputy about the BBC's guidelines. The context matters. The BBC produced its editorial guidance after it was found to be in breach of the UK communications' regulator Ofcom guidelines in reporting climate change. As part of the mitigation the BBC has issued guidance to its staff on how to report climate change. "The Today Programme" failed in its obligation to be fair and impartial by, essentially, equating and providing equivalence between the science and climate change sceptics.

RTÉ has not been found to be in breach of Broadcasting Authority of Ireland guidelines. We are very clear that we have guidance. Section 39 (1) of the Broadcasting Act requires RTÉ to be fair and impartial across a whole range of subject areas. The reporting of climate change is no different from the reporting of homelessness, Brexit, health or criminal justice. We are not obliged to provide balance and we do not balance different perspectives, but we are obliged to be fair and impartial. We strive to do that across all of the different subject areas we cover.

The director general has referenced the increasing engagement by audiences. We can always do more but during the recent climate change summit in Poland RTÉ did pieces pretty much every second day on climate change. We are responding to the increased interest we recognise from the audience. We are a responsive organisation and we live or die by the engagement we have with our audiences. We would be mad to not respond to the demands the audiences make through their engagement and their interest.