Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I am willing to withdraw my amendment on the basis of the Minister looking again at amendment No. 39. The Minister is taking a legalistic and theoretical view on this matter rather than a pragmatic one. I would be surprised if he has spoken about this issue with radio broadcasters as he does not seem to understand what we are getting at about two consecutive hours rather than one.

Many examples could be given of radio stations which would turn away viewers by doing what the Minister proposes. It would be crazy if a station had to cut short an interesting interview with a Minister simply because of a requirement to broadcast three minutes of advertising before the end of the hour rather than delay the advertisements to the following hour. No radio station wants to reduce its audience.

The Minister argues that moving from an hourly requirement to a slightly more flexible arrangement that would allow advertising time to be averaged over two hours will in some way damage radio listenership. However, the motivation behind this amendment is to improve radio content rather than force advertising breaks to meet strict criteria. I fundamentally disagree with him in this regard and ask him to reconsider.

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