Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I would aim for the 1 January deadline if we could make it. When we have our system up and running, the switch off may give a commercial advantage. It may help the market to deliver but I cannot commit to this because we do not know yet. We have not signed off on the contractual arrangements for the commercial multiplexes. That is a deadline I will look to achieve but if it does not happen by 1 January, it will happen during 2012. There are complexities in that we will seek to co-ordinate our switch off with Northern Ireland for a variety of reasons. It will lead to much greater efficiencies in the transmission network and so on and the Northern Ireland authorities may not be ready for that date. We will have to negotiate that but we can only do so when we have a clear indication as to what platform will deliver the alternative television service to run that system.

I share the frustration with the delay. Negotiations are continuing. There have been extensive negotiations between RTE and the consortium but also between the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and the consortium. As I am not party to the negotiations I cannot give details of them. I understand they deal with transmission costs, the nature of the consortium and how it is putting its own programme together. It is frustrating that the negotiations are taking so long. If it is not possible for us to achieve an outcome in this area the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, must, by proper legal means, set its own deadlines with regard to how we move on to alternative solutions.

See this speech in context