Mr. Dermot Horan:

I will respond to the Senator's question about the archive. It absolutely is a national treasure. The audio archive goes back to the 1920s and the film archive goes back to the 1960s. We introduced videotape thereafter. All of this is in peril because the formats are not longer useable. That is why we have undertaken this enormous project. We have been helped by the sound and vision archive scheme through Coimisiún na Meán whereby we have to create collections. Part of the requirement in respect of those collections is that they must be made available to the general public, which we do. The 1960s news summaries are all made available to the public. We can use them in different ways. We can publish them to the public or curate them. People can access them through the great archive website, which gets millions of views each year. We can help to curate the archives. For example, if a really big snow is expected, we can show footage of the snow from the 1980s or 2010. It is a part of who we are. If this new proposed media fund excludes broadcasters from being able to apply, we will not see the richness of the archive collected and made available to the public. Putting all of this material on digital tape and into digital files means we can share it with the public and cultural organisations such as the National Archives of Ireland, the National Library of Ireland and Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, depending on the collection. We support the retention of that ability. We would like Virgin Media, TG4 and independent radio stations to be able to apply as custodians of the archive.