Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

One must have a commercial, successful channel at the same time. That licence fee income gives the requirement to sometimes provide programming that would not necessarily get the highest rating but fulfils the public service remit. The second practical development to ensure that public service obligation is fulfilled is the introduction of a new single regulator which has an oversight role in RTE. Referring to our earlier discussion where we were asking if the board members of RTE should have that role to ensure that they recognise that this is a market for their other broadcasters, they may have that in mind but it is crucial that regardless of that there is an oversight regulator across all broadcasters here that recognises that there are certain standards and public service obligations which we require by dint of having a public service funding element. That is to fulfil our European obligations and we have had detailed discussions with the European Commission in that regard. It is also to fulfil the public service obligations that we as parliamentarians reflect and represent. That is the core purpose of establishing this new authority. The Members opposite will have the opportunity to appoint members of the authority who are mindful to ensure such public service obligations are met.

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