Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 11 July 2019

Public Accounts Committee

Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Appropriation Account 2018

9:00 am

Mr. Peter Finnegan:

The commission has considered this and there were meetings. The Ceann Comhairle met people who availed of and benefited from the service time ago and listened carefully to the points they made, which were valid. It was subsequently brought to the commission, which decided to go in a different direction for local media. The issue with the local media service was that it worked for a category of Members. Our estimates are that 27% of Members were covered by the previous contracts. On the local media platforms, only four of 19 local radio stations were covered. We now seek to design a service that has much broader coverage for Members generally, where there is more equal access to the service. We are also trying to get nationwide service on the local radios and so on that pick up the service.