Mr. Dermot Horan:

Regarding the media fund, RTÉ has no objection at all to independent production companies being the only ones that can apply for the fund. However, separately, an archive fund has been part of the previous fund. RTÉ, and indeed other broadcasters, have availed of that fund. There is a difference between being an independent, single production and being an archive. For example, we found a whole load of very limited edition CDs in Raidió na Gaeltachta. They are an amazing collection of Irish music. RTÉ does not own that - it is owned by the artists - but they were in peril and limited edition. We are digitising those as part of an Irish-language collection because RTÉ as the broadcaster is, in many ways, the custodian and curator of archives, whether we own the material or whether it is owned by an independent producer. In addition, in respect of every commission that RTÉ commissions, even though the commission or programme itself is owned by the independent producer, independent producers come and go and they could lose that material, so we look after and keep an archive of everything. We are making the observation that we fully support independent producers applying for Sound and Vision, or whatever Sound and Vision 2 becomes in terms of the media fund, but there is an amazing archive that RTÉ is currently in the process of digitising. We are digitising 200,000 video tapes from the eighties and nineties. We have digitised film and the news from the sixties and seventies. We are making this available to the general public. Let us not forget the archive because it is a national treasure.