Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I move amendment No. 82:

In page 101, to delete lines 22 and 23.

Section 96 places a statutory requirement on RTE and TG4 to establish audience councils to represent the views and interests of the general public to the boards of the two corporations. It proposes that RTE and TG4 should select the membership and chairpersons of their respective audience councils with a view to ensuring that such membership is representative of the viewing and listening public. The section also proposes that one member of the board should sit on the audience council to act as a conduit between the board and the audience council but precludes him or her from acting as chairperson. The rationale for such an approach was to ensure the audience council would not be perceived as a pure creature of the board of RTE or TG4. However, having listened to Deputy Coveney's arguments on Committee Stage, I propose to remove such preclusion.

See this speech in context