Mr. Alan Esslemont:

A DCU report showed quite recently that Ireland is in the bottom third of countries in terms of how much it spends on public service media as a proportion of GDP. There is a whole area to be caught up on that I think is being addressed by the Future of Media Commission, but we feel very strongly that, since Teilifís Éireann was set up, the Irish language has not received the kind of funding for Irish language media that it needs if it is to survive as a language. It is hoped that the announcement today on the implementation of the Future of Media Commission's plans will bring us all together and that we will get a holistic response to what is needed in Ireland. It is not just the one question of how we fix RTÉ. It is actually a question of how we make media in Ireland as strong as they can be.