Mr. Rory Coveney:

The AVMS directive was referred to. It is to be transposed by the end of the year. Within that, in a move that had considerable foresight, it offers member states the opportunity to create significant national content funds by levying those who benefit most from the digital economy. There is a number of examples of that in Germany, France and across the Union, but a mechanism has not been devised here yet. It is available to the Oireachtas to come up with a proposal. We are talking about companies that generate enormous sums of money in this market and that invest very little, if any, in the original programming. Retransmission fees are one part of it, but the AVMS directive allows for a levy to be created, which could be transformative for key genres like TV drama, which is going through an explosion globally in terms of the demand for it. A matter of significant regret for us is our reduction in spend on children's programming, in particular children's animation, which has a considerable export potential. It should be an important diet for Irish children to see Irish animation with Irish voices and Irish language voices as well.