Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses. In particular, I welcome Mr. Dooley back. I am not quite sure about Mother Teresa, but he has certainly appeared before this committee far more often than Our Lady has appeared at Lourdes. I thank him for his contribution.

Public service broadcasting will not just be provided by RTÉ. It can be provided by TG4, by Virgin Media and local and independent media. In an increasingly diverse media landscape, what is most important to us is that we ensure that quality Irish stories get told, which can be done very professionally but not exclusively by RTÉ. Yes, we want to maintain quality employment, but what is critical for us is that we have a vibrant public media sector in this country.

I am a little concerned about dismissing and challenging a lot of what goes on in the independent sector. Mr. O'Brien made the point about employers who misclassify workers as self-employed. With all due respect, it was RTÉ that was most guilty of that, rather than a lot of the independent producers. If we look at TG4 as a model, "Ros na Rún" is provided by an independent production company. In the case of "The Graham Norton Show" on the BBC, interestingly, it is provided by ITV production studios, an independent production company.

Our challenge in this country is to have a vibrant cultural creation industry, of which RTÉ is a part, which ensures that we have work for the creatives and for members of Equity. This challenge goes into the future, dealing with the challenges of AI and the world. Do the witnesses accept that there is plenty of evidence that publisher-broadcasters help to ensure a very vibrant public service broadcasting culture as well as producing quality programmes?